


No Charm Equal

by potentiality_26



Series: Heart and Understanding [1]
Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Background Amelia/Roxy, Background Gazelle/Valentine, Background Lancelot/Percival, Cupids, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Implied/Referenced Prostitution, M/M, Misunderstandings, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-06
Updated: 2015-09-08
Packaged: 2018-04-17 17:18:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 29,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4674956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/potentiality_26/pseuds/potentiality_26
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>To say that Harry was too surprised to react at first would have been a grave understatement. He wasn’t literally invisible, because he did sometimes need to interact with mortals to do his job, he was just unnoticeable. People- the particular charge he had been assigned to most of all- were meant to see him and yet never actually process his presence. Unless he showed up in their houses- which a gentleman would never do, of course- they would ignore him and just get on with their lives. And yet here Eggsy was, closer than anyone had been to Harry since- well, since he was mortal, and that was long enough ago that Harry could hardly remember it- snarling, “Why are you following me?”</i>
</p>
<p>Harry is a cupid.  His latest assignment is proving to be... complicated.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from the quote, "There is no charm equal to the tenderness of the heart" from Jane Austen. 
> 
> Giant thank you to [klaudos](http://archiveofourown.org/users/klaudos/pseuds/klaudos) for the beta, help with the title, and making [this lovely picspam](http://gyprosettis.tumblr.com/post/128830928460/no-charm-equal-hartwin-cupid-au-harry-is-a?soc_src=mail&soc_trk=ma). 
> 
> Not Brit-picked.

Harry found Eggsy Unwin in a book shop, because that was how Merlin liked to engineer things. Eggsy was using the little pocket money he had to buy a picture book for his little sister, which wasn’t the sort of thing that Harry would have expected after reading the rather slim file that had been put together on Eggsy by the teen division and then left gathering dust for several years. The teen division had evidently not understood Eggsy very well, which was why- according to Merlin, anyway- files were no substitute for something a little more hands on.

When he’d passed Harry the file in question, Merlin had said that this one came from upstairs- _way_ upstairs- and that this young man had had more than his fair share of trouble and that he needed a little more love in his life.  

Watching Eggsy buy that picture book, Harry thought _yes_.  

Eggsy’s aura, on the other hand, said _no_.

When Harry became whatever he was- a cupid, an angel, a celestial matchmaker, the name had never mattered a great deal to him- he had, like all of his colleagues, been given a particular purview. It might have been something to do with the code-name they gave him at the same time- Galahad- but Harry’s charges tended to be people who had been burned, often many times, but who still had a sort of innocence in their hearts and who deserved to be matched as much as anyone, if not more.

So when Harry looked at Eggsy and saw one of the greyest auras he had ever beheld- at least on such a young person, since it often took age and perhaps the loss of someone very special for a mortal to get that jaded- it was something of a shock. It was true that people who weren’t built for that kind of love looked grey to Harry; he could only see romantic potential, so it was those in the branches that maintained platonic and familial relationships who would be able to see everything those people had to offer. They weren’t Harry’s job.

Harry’s job was to find Eggsy someone to fall in love with, and Merlin wouldn’t have assigned him unless that was actually something that Eggsy needed.  

Of course, Merlin also probably wouldn’t have assigned Harry if it was going to be easy.

Watching Eggsy walk up to the cash register, Harry quietly ground his teeth. If anyone but Merlin had delivered Eggsy's case to him, Harry would have thought that his personal connection to the Unwin family had gone unnoticed- but it _was_ Merlin, so Harry suspected that it was actually precisely why Merlin had assigned Eggsy to him. Harry had matched Eggsy’s parents, twenty-six years ago now, and it had been some of Harry's best work. To see that Lee’s son had fallen through the proverbial cracks and ended up like this… Harry wasn't exactly filled with general goodwill at the moment.  

When Eggsy left the shop, Harry followed him for a time as he usually would a charge. Harry noticed that Eggsy had a wary way of carrying himself that would most likely not lend itself to serendipitous meetings on the street. The thought was off-handed only, since there would be no meetings at all until Eggsy’s aura had at least a little color in it, but it was sufficiently distracting that Harry didn’t at first notice when Eggsy came to an abrupt halt.

Harry actually collided with him, and Eggsy gripped him by the lapels and dragged him into the nearest alley, which was mercifully empty.

To say that Harry was too surprised to react at first would have been a grave understatement. He wasn’t literally invisible, because he did sometimes need to interact with mortals to do his job, he was just unnoticeable. People- the particular charge he had been assigned to most of all- were meant to see him and yet never actually process his presence. Unless he showed up in their houses- which a gentleman would never do, of course- they would ignore him and just get on with their lives. And yet here Eggsy was, closer than anyone had been to Harry since- well, since he was mortal, and that was long enough ago that Harry could hardly remember it- snarling, “Why are you following me?”

“I’m not,” Harry lied quickly.

Eggsy rolled his eyes. “Look, I ain’t an idiot. I saw you see me in there. I saw you recognize me.”

From the picture in Eggsy’s file, naturally, he had. Harry should have been thinking farther ahead than this, coming up with a better explanation, but he was actually finding it rather difficult to think at all at the moment. He hadn’t been touched by anyone in so long, hadn’t done anything but go from charge to charge, lingering on the edges of the world but never actually a part of it, that he sometimes forgot about his physical body altogether. It was impossible to forget about it, though, with that smaller but undeniably strong form pressed up against him like that. Eggsy was _warm_ , that was mainly what Harry was thinking while he should have been coming up with a cover story. So very warm.  

When Harry didn’t produce an explanation, Eggsy continued: “ _I_ don’t recognize _you_ \- a fact which don't endear you to me, by the way. But wherever you think you know me from you don’t. I don’t do that stuff anymore.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Harry finally managed to say. He had an idea, of course- Eggsy’s less than legal activities were just about the only thing that had been well-documented in the part of the file concerning the last five years of his life. He dealt drugs off and on and when he- or perhaps more accurately his family- had been truly desperate he had had sex for money. It was to be expected that that, at least, be highlighted in his file, since it could affect his love life in a myriad of ways. Still, Harry felt enough genuine confusion about the whole situation that he thought it would carry the lie. Eggsy seemed to believe him at last, which in turn seemed to give him pause. Harry jumped to use the opening. “Anyway,” he suggested, “maybe I thought I recognized you and then realized that I was mistaken.”

Eggsy did consider that for a moment, at least. He shook his head. “Not buying it.”

Harry let his shoulders slump a little in Eggsy’s grip, searching for a better answer. Eventually he had to settle on the only one he could think of. “Your name is Unwin, right?” he said.

“Yeah.” Eggsy looked even more suspicious. “Who the fuck are you?”

“My name is…” Harry hadn’t given his name to anyone but a new colleague in years, and even then it was only ever his code-name, and that made him hesitate, strangely overwhelmed. “Harry Hart.” He gave himself another moment before he took the plunge. “I knew your father a long time ago and I thought I recognized you.” It was the truth, for the most part.  Harry was proud of that.

Better yet, it worked. Eggsy continued to look skeptical, but he loosened his grip and backed off, letting Harry go. Harry missed his heat immediately, then scolded himself roundly for it. “And now you just happen to be walking my way?” Eggsy asked.

“Precisely.”

“You don’t exactly belong out here, bruv.”

Harry glanced around and was forced to agree. He contained a sigh, though just barely. Part of being unnoticeable was that he didn’t have to worry about looking out of place in his fancy suit- and since he was unlikely to be robbed or otherwise harassed he didn’t generally think too much about where he was. But Eggsy was right; they were not in a part of the city where someone who looked like Harry generally spent his time.

Harry searched for an excuse and eventually found one. “I’ve been away for a while,” he said. If ‘away’ could be understood to mean, ‘not strictly alive’, this too was true. “But there’s a place I used to eat at not from here.” Technically it was so long ago that Harry could hardly remember it, but the streets did seem familiar. “I wanted to see if it was still open.”

Eggsy relaxed even further, but said, “Show me.”

Harry prayed that his memory of the place in question would lead him correctly, and happily it did. The pub looked very different than it had the last time Harry had been there- the paint on the sign was chipping away, a sharp drop in clientele was suggested by how empty it was, and it had undoubtedly changed ownership a few times- but at least it was still there. Harry gave Eggsy what he hoped was a vindicated look. “There you are,” Harry said. “So.” For a moment both of them just stood, awkwardly, by the door. “Have lunch with me?”

“You’re a fucking weirdo,” Eggsy said, but he went inside. Harry followed him.

The food was inexpensive, but Harry still offered to pay. Eggsy looked uncomfortable- clearly torn between knowing that Harry really should pay and not wanting to owe him. Harry couldn’t very well remind Eggsy that he had spent almost all the money he had in the bookshop just now without making Eggsy think that Harry was following him again, so he tried a different tack: “It’s because of me you’re even here, isn’t it?”

Eggsy rolled his eyes at that, but he still looked suspicious. “I don’t owe you nothing if you do,” he said.

“Of course not.”

Something about the way Harry sounded legitimately offended seemed to thaw Eggsy further, and he let Harry pay for the food.  

They sat down at a table by the window, and Harry glanced out, searching for something to end the rather oppressive silence. “Good weather we’ve been having,” he said at last. He had lost his knack for talking about inconsequential things a long time ago, but Eggsy snorted and there was something about the very awkwardness of the remark that made him drop his guard even further, so Harry couldn’t consider the remark a complete failure.

“Look,” Eggsy said, humor in his voice now, “who are you?”

“I told you,” Harry said. “My name is Harry. I… work in a tailor’s shop. Your father was… he was a customer many years ago and I thought perhaps I recognized you. You resemble him, you know.”

Eggsy nodded like he’d been told that before. “When did my dad have to go to a tailors?” he asked.

“For his wedding,” Harry answered. It was a bit of a stretch of the truth, but since Harry was the reason he had met Michelle and come to get married in the first place it was close enough. “To your mother.”

“You know he’s dead, right?” Eggsy said.

“I’m sorry for it.” Harry meant it. His job was the romantic happily ever after. The fact that he had no power over what came _after_ that had always troubled him. “He struck me as a good man.”

Eggsy’s smile changed his face, made him look so much younger.

Harry kept quiet for a moment, turning his attention to his meal. The sight of Harry poking at the greasy, paper-wrapped fish in his nice suit seemed to amuse Eggsy, and his smile widened. Harry- well, Harry _could_ eat but he didn’t need to, and thus rarely did. It had been such a long time since he’d simply had lunch with someone- and perhaps longer still since anyone had smiled at him like that, even if it was just because they thought him silly. Harry decided he might as well to press the advantage. “I really wasn’t following you.”

“Liar,” Eggsy said, but Harry could still hear traces of humor in his voice.

“I assure you I have no nefarious intentions.”

Eggsy actually laughed at that one, shaking his head to himself, and then he applied himself to his lunch. They both finished eating in silence.

When Eggsy rose Harry did the same, saying, “May I see you home?”

“Yeah, no,” Eggsy said.

Harry knew better than to not accept the answer, so he just nodded and said “Goodbye, then.” Eggsy rolled his eyes again and turned away, heading for the door. Harry sat back down so Eggsy could leave without feeling pursued. Once he was outside, Eggsy half turned, looked back at Harry through the window, gave a little snort and then went on his way again. A moment later he was gone, probably under the impression that he would never see Harry again.  

*   *   *

“You realize that this changes everything, Merlin,” Harry said.

“I suppose it does,” Merlin agreed, with nowhere near the amount of concern Harry thought was warranted in his voice.

The fact that Harry couldn’t follow Eggsy for the next few weeks (or months or perhaps even years that were sometimes required in situations like this) without being noticed meant that none of Harry’s usual methods would work this time. He would have to cultivate a relationship with Eggsy somehow, become his friend and find out why he was so closed off by actually talking with him, and _then_ steer him into the path of the right person- once he found them- the old-fashioned way. It was probably the most daunting job Harry had ever come across. “Is this even supposed to happen?” he demanded, leaning closer to Merlin across his desk.

They were in Merlin’s office, back at their headquarters. The place that Harry and his colleagues referred to as HQ was based behind a tailor’s shop- the one where Harry had told Eggsy he worked. In reality, it was just a place he passed through on the way to his real work- though he did buy all his suits from there.  

They had a kind of symbiotic relationship with the Kingsman tailors that Harry rarely examined too closely. The shop was a cover when a cover was needed, and sometimes those who worked there did the little things that unnoticeable people were less good at- like renting out living spaces or buying cars. In turn, cupids like Harry were some of their best customers; Harry himself had even been a regular of the shop back when it was first founded and he was still mortal.  And no, the significance of the fact that he could remember his tailor but not the last person who had touched him did not escape Harry.  It was something he tried not to think too much about.  

Something else he didn't think much about was how it all worked. He didn’t know why the men and women who worked in the shop were able to interact with his kind the way all other mortals couldn’t, and he didn’t think too much about where the money they paid them with came from either- or the money he used for anything, come to that. It certainly behaved like real money, but he had no idea what it did to the larger economy whenever it went into circulation. Like a lot of the rules of Harry's current existence, it seemed to just... be.  

In the back of the shop there was an elevator that could take Harry and his colleagues more than underground- it took them to one of the worlds beyond the world of living, the one that straddled the line between it and the next. It was where people like Harry stayed until they were retired and moved on at last.  

“Supposed to happen,” Merlin repeated, breaking Harry out of that train of thought, “no, it isn’t. But it isn’t unprecedented either.”

“This has happened before? To who?”

“No one you would know,” Merlin told him, a little imperiously. “But it has happened before and it doesn’t make your job impossible. Eggsy Unwin _is_ going to fall in love, Galahad. I can guarantee it.” He held Harry’s eyes for a moment. “You do you trust me, don’t you?” he asked.

“Yes,” Harry said reluctantly. “But _you’re_ going to have to trust _me_. If I say I need something done by one of the other branches, you get it done, none of the usual mind games.”

Harry could only see romantic auras, only effect romantic potential, but there were different branches that controlled every kind of relationship. Not just the different kinds of love- but also hate and jealousy and fear and dislike and even the minute connections that formed between people who never even properly met at all. Sometimes, in order to do his job, Harry needed someone to give one of those other dynamics a nudge the way he could only to do with romantic attachments. In a life like Eggsy’s, that sort of thing was never easy but it was almost always necessary.    

“Fair enough,” Merlin agreed. “Just fill out these forms and take them to the Archive.”

The forms were in triplicate, but it was still too easy. There was something else going on, Harry knew it. He felt, though, that he had pushed his luck on the subject of Eggsy enough for the time being. He decided to fill out the forms and bide his time.      

*   *   *

Because he had- obviously- not been expecting to meet Eggsy, Harry had done nothing to build a background for himself that would make it conceivable for them to meet by accident a second time. Harry was clearly from a different class, he lived in a different part of town- Harry had a home outside headquarters for when he needed it, though he spent almost no time in it- and he therefore operated in completely different circles. He and Eggsy were two people who had absolutely nothing in common and Harry was supposed to make it seem like it was somehow perfectly natural for them to just run into each other again one day soon.  

It was a feat that Harry thought would be difficult for anyone- even someone with a lot more social experience than Harry himself happened to have. If his first meeting with Eggsy had taught Harry anything, it was that he had forgotten how to really talk to people.

So he tried to think of himself as someone else- someone he was trying to bring into Eggsy’s circle as a potential match. How would he steer them together under those circumstances?

It was a foolish idea but a useful intellectual exercise, and it was how he came up with the idea for the first little tweak Merlin negotiated on his behalf.

Through a raffle that no one in Eggsy's family was ultimately willing to admit to _not_ signing up for they ended up winning a substantial gift card to the kind of shop they normally couldn’t afford to patronize but which none of them were willing to let go to waste. Harry didn’t bother too much about the details- he didn’t do much shopping himself, after all- but he had it on good authority that it would look perfectly reasonable for him to “happen” upon them there.

Technically, Harry ran into Eggsy’s little sister first- or, rather, Daisy ran into him, plowing into his legs face first and nearly falling over backwards as she did so. Harry caught and righted her. “Are you all right, little one?” he asked, crouching down in front of her.

“Not little,” she protested, tossing her head.

“Is that right?” Harry murmured. He didn’t have to look up from her little face to know that Eggsy was getting closer. He might not have been able to see its color, but Eggsy’s grey aura certainly shone a little brighter as he zeroed in on his tiny sister’s location.

“Sorry,” Eggsy said quickly, scooping her up. “She got away from me there.” There was something defensive in Eggsy’s voice, as if he was entirely expecting to be accused of poor childcare in addition to being not the usual clientele of the store. When Harry looked up at him there was a proud yet rattled set to his chin that hardened but then fell away altogether when Eggsy looked back down at him. “It’s you,” he said, blinking.

Still crouching on the floor, Harry said, “I’m not stalking you,” which probably didn’t help his case all that much.

To be fair, Harry wasn’t thinking very clearly. For all he had prepared for it, a part of Harry still hadn’t expected Eggsy to have remembered him. That was another part of being unnoticeable; even if a person had a conversation with Harry, he didn’t stick in their minds. He hadn’t had anyone but one of his coworkers remember his face or his name in... well, in as long as he’d been what he was.

“Sure,” Eggsy snorted. He looked vaguely amused though; Harry supposed that was something. He eyed his sister seriously and said, “What’ve I told you about talking to strangers, Daisy girl?”

“Not a stranger if you know him,” Daisy pointed out astutely.

Harry rose, saying, “She has you there.”

“No, thank you, she don’t, since we ain’t exactly been properly introduced.”

“Oh,” came out of Harry’s mouth. It was a half a question, half an uncertain statement to fill the sudden silence. He wasn’t sure what Eggsy was saying, what he actually expected.

Eggsy shifted his grip on Daisy and reached out a hand. “I’m Eggsy Unwin.”

That was when Harry realized that Eggsy had technically never told him his name. He hesitated only for a second before gripping the offered hand. “Harry Hart.”

“Me too,” Daisy said, and looked satisfied when she got to wrap her small hand around his forefinger. “Daisy.”

“Hello, Daisy,” Harry said.

Another silence followed the introductions.      

“We just have to-” Eggsy said, gesturing vaguely in the opposite direction. Harry nodded and let them go.

It was genuinely a coincidence when Harry arrived at the cash register at about the same time that Eggsy and Daisy did. “You first,” Harry said automatically. The presence of someone behind them in line, even if that someone didn’t stick in her mind very well, made the cashier work faster and not hassle Eggsy at all, and he looked grateful for it.

Still, Harry was surprised to find the two of them waiting outside the store. Eggsy put Daisy down, but since she still trailed close behind him it didn’t exactly give them much more privacy. Eggsy said, “What _are_ your intentions?”

“Pardon?”

“Last time we met you said you had no nefarious intentions. So.” Eggsy cleared his throat. “I was just wondering what your intentions were.”

And this was exactly the opportunity Harry had been waiting for, a chance to build something with his charge that would allow him to be a little more active in his life. “I like you,” Harry said. He had discovered- rather abruptly, under the circumstances- that it was true.

Eggsy snorted. “You barely know me.”

“I suppose so,” Harry said. “And you, I think, don’t particularly like me. I was hoping both of those things might change. But, of course, it’s out of my hands.”

“Because you ain’t stalking me?”

“Exactly so.”  

“Okay,” Eggsy said, ducking his head. His lips curved upward and he looked… more pleased than Harry would have expected. Still, the banter- such as it was- came easier than he would have expected, and if it made Eggsy smile that would have to do for the time being.

Still, when Harry asked, “May I see you home?” again he fully expected to receive the same response as last time.

“Why the hell not,” Eggsy said instead.

*   *   *

Which, in a roundabout way, was how Harry ended up negotiating with Merlin for his second tweak in Eggsy’s life- if, by tweak, one can also mean an enormous titanic change which despite Merlin’s promise that Harry wouldn’t have to fight him on these things Harry did actually end up having to fight for tooth and nail.    

It happened like this:

When they arrived at Eggsy’s flat- the images in the file on Eggsy didn’t really do the miserable place justice- it was peaceful. There was no shouting or crying from within, but for Harry there didn’t have to be. Eggsy’s mother poked her head out and smiled widely, beckoning her son inside and paying very little mind to Harry. Michelle Unwin- as she had been the last time Harry saw her, on the day of her wedding- was much altered. The makeup was thick on her face, but it was her sad, choked aura that really caught Harry’s attention. It had been so lovely once, and Harry could see remnants of that long ago love match, broken by a death and what had come after- because she was in a relationship now, too, and it had left parts of her aura all black and withered and wrong. There were patterns to auras that someone who understood them could read like a book, and Harry could see that Michelle’s current marriage was a bad one indeed.

Eggsy’s expression as he caught Harry looking at his mother was complicated- defensive and slightly angry, a little sad and a lot ashamed. He probably thought Harry was taking in just her poorly concealed black eye rather than the entire history of her marriage- fine at first, full of the financial stability she had so desperately needed to raise a young son, and fun enough for her to forget her grief over Eggsy’s father from time to time, followed by rough patches that only got rougher, always resulting in showers of gifts and good humor that promised a never ending string of new starts, and all the while her aura was wilting, wilting, and getting sicker all the time. Harry made himself look away, focusing briefly on the top of Daisy’s blonde head, a beacon of cheerful grey light.

Later, Harry would tell Merlin that Eggsy’s mother was the one who had needed a cupid, that it would have saved Eggsy all the grief he currently suffered if she had never married Dean Anthony Baker in the first place. Later, Merlin would remind Harry that he of all people should know that Michelle had had her big love and that her first husband’s death and all that came after had placed her out of their division’s purview. He would also remind Harry that if they could ask Eggsy he would probably willingly go through it all again if it meant keeping Daisy in his life.

That, Harry wouldn’t be able to argue with.

In the moment, Harry conjured a smile. “I’ll be on my way,” he said to Eggsy. “Good evening.” He gave a final smile to Daisy and moved away from the door. He thought, as he slipped away, that he caught Eggsy’s shoulders slumping out of the corner of his eye.

It made him want to stay, made him want to never leave Eggsy alone ever again, but that simply wasn’t feasible.

He had work to do.

*   *   *

“I need you to get rid of the stepfather,” Harry informed Merlin when he arrived back at HQ. “Full custody of the child for the mother with minimal fuss, alimony, _and_ he leaves the city- if not the country- and never comes back.”

“That’s a tall order, Harry,” Merlin said slowly.    

“Yes. And completely necessary. Eggsy is young, he’s kind, he’s reasonably optimistic given his circumstances. He’s just in the right age bracket to be thinking seriously about love, if not permanence, but he is completely grey. He’s grey because he can’t think about anything but protecting his family and staying alive. Not to mention that his mother’s history has probably destroyed what faith in romance he might have ever actually had. So. Since you insist that he will fall in love, and soon, I must do something drastic. I cannot heal those scars by dropping some nice girl in his path. I’m not sure I can heal them at all, but I can’t even start unless you help me get him away from that man.”

Harry didn’t need to talk to Eggsy about it to know that he would never leave his mother and sister with Dean, so Harry needed the stepfather to be gone. Immediately and for good.

“Will you get that done that for me?” he asked.

Merlin sighed deeply. “Yes, Harry.”

*   *   *

Over the next few weeks London became a very inhospitable place for Dean Baker. Harry didn’t know or understand what strings Merlin pulled, but everything Harry had requested was put in motion, one thing after another.

Harry didn’t try to find Eggsy during that time; he thought it best that Eggsy have the chance to sort through the changes in his life without Harry looming over his shoulder.

So it was truly a coincidence when Eggsy walked into the same coffee shop where Harry was having his morning tea. Well- it wasn’t a complete coincidence, because Harry had developed a taste for eating and drinking again because of that first meeting between them, and because Harry had also taken to frequenting places closer to where Eggsy lived just to develop a presence in the area for when he would need it later, and because Eggsy only had the pocket money to indulge in a coffee now and then because Dean wasn’t drinking up everything the family had anymore. It was close enough, though, that Eggsy saw real surprise on Harry’s face.

“Hey.”  Eggsy approached Harry’s table with exaggerated casualness, his hands deep in his pockets.  Still, Harry thought he must have imagined it, that Eggsy deflated a little when he realized that Harry couldn’t possibly have planned the two of them running into each other like this.  “I ain’t seen you in a while.”

“Which might be odder if I had been stalking you,” Harry pointed out.  “Which- I’ll remind you- I was not.”     

The reference to their last meeting warmed Eggsy a little- he snorted out a laugh, at least- but he still looked unsure of himself.  Harry pushed the seat across from him out with his foot, giving Eggsy an enquiring look.  Eggsy slouched immediately into the chair.  He crossed his arms over his chest, evidently still embarrassed- which, on Eggsy, tended to look resentful. 

“How are you?” Harry asked instead of remarking on it. 

“Okay,” Eggsy said.

“And Daisy?”

That warmed Eggsy a little bit more. He unfolded, sat up straighter, even smiled as he talked about her making a few new friends at the park in their new neighborhood. Apparently, Merlin had added in an additional financial windfall for the family without any bullying from Harry. Harry smiled at the thought.  

Eggsy’s aura still looked entirely grey, but he seemed a great deal easier in himself even if he did still act a little suspicious of Harry. It was odd, how Eggsy would seek him out, as if he wanted Harry’s attention but felt threatened by it at the same time. Eggsy was going to have to get comfortable enough with Harry to let him into his love life a little- when he had one, that was- and the only way Harry knew of to make him so was by being patient, non-threatening, and present for as long as it took. He would find a way to do that. He _would_.

“I’m glad she’s doing well,” Harry said, meaning it whole-heartedly, and Eggsy seemed to get more relaxed still.

A woman from behind the counter arrived then with Eggsy’s coffee. Her aura was the grey just tinged with pink that Harry usually associated with someone who had gotten over a bad breakup and was only just beginning to think she could get close to someone again- and right under Harry’s eyes she gave Eggsy a very speculative look.

“Let me know if you need anything else,” she told him with enthusiasm.

Eggsy cleared his throat the moment she was gone, faint color lighting his cheeks, and his eyes flicked to Harry several times with uncertainty lighting them.

Perhaps Eggsy wanted to talk to her a bit more. The place was empty, and she certainly seemed as though she might enjoy a little flirtation with a good looking young man. She wouldn’t register Harry enough to be embarrassed to do so in front of him- but Eggsy very well might be. Serendipitously, Harry was also finished with his tea and it was about the time of day he usually checked on one of his other- much simpler- charges, a woman a little older than Eggsy- called Amelia- who had just become engaged to the woman of her dreams.

Briefly, Harry considered giving the passing interest a little nudge, encouraging it to blossom, but changed his mind. If she and Eggsy were a good match it would reveal itself in time, Harry was sure of that much.  Best not to rush things so early. 

“I’m terribly sorry,” Harry said. “But I have to be going.” He reached out and touched Eggsy’s shoulder. He flinched slightly, instinctually, and Harry didn’t withdraw, just let his hand rest there lightly until Eggsy relaxed underneath it.

Eggsy must have read Harry’s reaction to his reaction on his face, because he immediately said, “He’s gone,” and then flushed as it occurred to him that Harry might not have any idea what he was talking about.

Harry smiled and gently rubbed Eggsy’s arm. “I’m glad.”

He let his hand slide lightly down Eggsy’s forearm toward his elbow, and was startled when Eggsy gripped his hand, threading their fingers together, and said, “It wouldn’t be so bad, yeah?”

“What?” Harry asked, blinking.

“If… if you was stalking me.”

Harry blinked, surprised. Eggsy was such a nice boy once you got past the chip on his shoulder. It was difficult to believe that he could be as bad at making friends as Harry was. “But it would be rather less like stalking,” Harry pointed out slowly. “If I had permission.” Eggsy’s eyes flickered away from his, focusing on the grain of the table as though it had suddenly become fascinating to him. “But… perhaps if I said that I’d like to see more of you…”

“I’d like that too,” Eggsy agreed, almost too quickly.

Harry squeezed his hand. “As would I.”

Eggsy drew his hand away, sharply enough that Harry supposed it had finally occurred to Eggsy how the two of them looked. The girl who worked here- she was hovering now behind the counter- was unlikely to think anything of it, but Eggsy didn’t know that. Harry cleared his throat and gave him some space, tossing his umbrella from hand to hand and backing off.  

“Here,” Eggsy said, quickly again, rushing through the word like he was afraid he’d never get it out otherwise. He held a napkin in his hand, a phone number hastily scribbled across it with a pen Harry hadn’t even known Eggsy had.

“Thank you,” Harry said, mouth dry. He hesitated, then reached out and took the napkin. Their fingers brushed as he did so and Harry kept from shuddering by sheer force of will alone. Eggsy, on the other hand, did react. His hand trembled slightly and something in his eyes went soft.

Harry took his time reaching for Eggsy, and when he touched Eggsy’s shoulder that time there was no flinch. Something Harry couldn't identify felt like it was squirming inside the cage of his ribs.  He took a breath to calm it and managed to say, “Good day.” He squeezed Eggsy’s shoulder once more and then released him, making his way to the door.

There he paused and glanced behind him. The girl behind the counter- Tilde, her nametag read- was still watching Eggsy with a thoughtful gleam in her eye, and Eggsy…

Harry thought that just maybe he saw a tiny touch of pink in his aura too.

*   *   *

In the following weeks, Harry kept his promise to see more of Eggsy as much because he had discovered that he genuinely liked being around him as because he needed to in order to do his job. Eggsy became a regular fixture in Harry’s life- first with just a walk here and a coffee or tea there, maybe once or twice a week, and then more and more often, until Harry saw or spoke to Eggsy at least every other day.

Harry had been alive for more than a century, so he looked at time differently than mortals did- but even so he was amazed when he discovered that several months had passed almost without his even realizing it.    

It occurred to Harry while he was in the Archive, waiting with a dozen or so other cupids to file some paperwork with the front desk.

The Archive was run by a man- well, an angel, technically- called Valentine, and though Arthur, the head of Harry’s branch, might have been his immediate boss Valentine was the final authority. Harry or Merlin or any of their colleagues could check files in and out, but they were always returned to the Archive. In the bookcases that spiraled upward into infinity above the circular room containing the front desk were the files of every human being, alive, dead or as yet unborn. Some were slender like Eggsy’s had been when Harry first received it. Others were hundreds of pages long, thick with annotations. Others still were closed, belonging to those who had not been matched and never would be. Only Valentine knew the location and contents of every single file.

Harry did not envy him his job.

As Harry waited, he looked up at those bookcases and wondered, for the first time, about his own file. It had always been up there, somewhere, but it had never before occurred to Harry to think about what it contained. He could remember so little about his life as a man. It had never really seemed to matter before.  

For a moment, though, he did wonder- and for some reason that made him think of Eggsy.

Without thinking about it, Harry paged through his contacts list and called him. As Harry sat there and listened to it ring, a fellow cupid- looking very smart in his black suit- gave Harry an odd look. No one made phone calls in the Archive, because no one had anyone to call- and because cupids normally just faded out of existence until they were called to the front desk, no one really got bored. Harry couldn’t explain it to himself, but the idea of drifting like that, of becoming even less real than he had already was, had begun- of late- to fill him with unease.

Harry realized that he had felt that way since he met Eggsy. He realized, too, how long ago that had been. He had spent half that time with other charges and got twice as much done- and yet, between all the time he was spending with Eggsy and his work with his other charges, the weeks had passed so quickly.  

When all of that occurred to him, Harry panicked briefly and hoped Eggsy wouldn’t answer, but after the third ring he did.

“Hey, Harry,” Eggsy said. “What’s up?”

Harry had yet to figure out what to do with that phrase. He let out a long breath, gut turning over. Eggsy’s voice made everything that had seemed so calamitous a moment ago not so bad after all, but Harry had an idea that that wasn’t a good thing. However much Harry told himself that Eggsy’s aura was still more grey than red, that it wouldn’t do to rush with someone like him, he knew he still should have made more progress by now and he couldn’t lose sight of that fact. He couldn’t let himself stagnate. “I’m waiting in line to file some paperwork,” he said.

“Tailors do a lot of paperwork?”

“You might be surprised,” Harry said.

“Not hard to imagine that,” Eggsy replied, tone relatively light. “Don’t know nothing about being a tailor, me.” He was silent for a moment. “So you- uh- just called to call?”

“I suppose,” Harry said, so surprised to realize that- though he had never done so before- it came very easily that it didn’t for a moment occur to him to lie. “I was thinking of you, so I called. But I would like to see you later. If you were… amenable.”  

“Yeah, ‘course,” Eggsy said. His voice seemed somehow strangled, and when he spoke again he rushed through it in that way he often did: “You did promise you’d take me through the National Gallery.”

“I did, didn’t I?” Harry agreed quietly.

Given how different they were, Harry would have expected more difficulty in finding things that they both enjoyed, but actually it had all gone very smoothly. Since it was ostensibly the source of their original acquaintance, Harry had at first talked a bit more about Eggsy’s father, but though he seemed naturally curious on the subject it had struck Harry that Eggsy wanted to put that topic behind them for good. Harry had been more than willing to accommodate him, especially when he discovered how very easy Eggsy could be talk to and spend time with.  

Eggsy always seemed fascinated by Harry’s- much edited- stories and his- often personal- knowledge of history, and Harry was likewise interested in Eggsy’s fresh, endlessly surprising perspective. Harry had always had a taste for the finer things, and unlike many of his colleagues he had refused to let himself get out of touch with pop culture, but he hadn’t realized how much joy had gone out of it all for him until he had Eggsy to share it with. Harry’s supernaturally limitless pocketbook was more than happy to indulge both of them in that regard once Eggsy had started to let him- expanding their outings to trips to museums or the occasional play or film Eggsy expressed an interest in.  

He had learned so much about Eggsy in that time. That he had a love of learning which had been dimmed by his somewhat haphazard education, but which flared to life with just a little tending. That he would rather see an old musical than a superhero movie any day of the week. That he could find joy in the smallest, strangest things- like being caught in the rain without an umbrella, not that with Harry he ever was, or laughing his way through giving impenetrable directions to tourists.

Unfortunately, one thing that Harry hadn’t learned about Eggsy was how his taste in romantic partners might run, and since that was the whole point of the exercise Harry couldn’t help being angry with himself when he realized how much time had passed so fruitlessly.  

Eggsy’s voice cut into Harry’s frustrated train of thought. “This afternoon, maybe?”

“I would like that,” Harry said, and however else Harry might have been feeling at the moment, it was completely true. From the front desk, Valentine hailed him. “I have to go, Eggsy. But how does… two o’clock sound?”

“Yeah. I’ll be at home.”

“All right,” Harry agreed, starting to smile even though Eggsy couldn’t see him. “Goodbye.”

“Bye.”    

Harry pocketed his phone and made his way to Valentine’s enormous desk. Valentine wasn’t alone, though he rarely was; Gazelle was seated on his desk, her back resting against a rather precarious looking stack of files, polishing one of her prosthetic limbs. Her eyes narrowed when she saw Harry. “Galahad,” she said. “You’ve been making a lot of work for me lately.” Gazelle had a certain twist to her mouth that made her always look annoyed and amused at once, so it was difficult for Harry to tell how inconvenienced she really felt.

Gazelle was essentially a messenger. It was her job to ferry requests between the different branches, so everything Harry had pushed Merlin into requesting over the last few weeks had gone through her, which was a lot of work indeed. Still, everyone knew that she and Valentine adored each other and were tiptoeing around a courtship, so really Harry saw it as doing them both a favor. Accordingly, he flashed her guileless smile.

She rolled her eyes, but Harry caught a gleam of humor in them.

“Anything major for me today, Big G?” Valentine asked.  

“Not really,” Harry replied. “Beyond the minor flirtation with a woman in a café that I already logged, nothing. He’s had a great many changes in his life-” Harry inclined his head to Gazelle- “and it will take some time for them to settle.” Harry felt like he was making excuses for his own benefit as much as theirs, because really he should have made more progress by now.

He had no more idea of what kind of person Eggsy might be interested in meeting, in loving, than when he had first been given Eggsy’s file, which outlined a few back alley fumbles with people he hardly knew, other sexual encounters that were even less romantic, and no indication of Eggsy having a type whatsoever. And Harry knew that even if by some miracle he stumbled on someone perfect it wouldn’t be easy to steer potential subjects Eggsy’s way- while clearly visible to Eggsy- without making him uncomfortable. Harry suspected that this was exactly why his kind were invisible to mortals in the first place.

Valentine nodded and noted ‘nothing in particular’ down without questioning what most people would probably consider overzealous filing on Harry’s part. It made sense in his own mind, but he hesitated to explain it to anyone else; he wasn’t sure he would be able to. He knew it was no one in particular’s fault that their “system” had failed Eggsy, but the more Harry got to know him, the more he wanted to blame someone. Eggsy could be sullen and prickly, but he was also sweet, selfless, and blessed with an optimism that few people who had had only half the bad luck he had would have been able to maintain. When he first met Eggsy, Harry had been troubled by his aura and slim file on principle- partially because Eggsy’s parents had been his own match, but more because no one deserved to slip through the cracks. Now that Harry knew Eggsy better, he found it positively infuriating- so if he overcompensated slightly by putting every little thing that happened or didn’t happen in his file, Harry thought it was more than justified.    

Then again, perhaps Valentine did understand. He definitely seemed to when he said, “You’re doing right by him. That boy.”

“I certainly hope so,” Harry said.

Gazelle shot him a knowing look from beneath the fringe of her bangs, but Harry had no idea what, precisely, she thought she knew. Harry kept his curiosity to himself, however. It was best, he had learned, not to try to fathom Gazelle. “Thank you,” he said to Valentine, and smiled.

“Any time.” Valentine smiled back broadly. “And good luck.”

As he made his way out of the Archive, Harry thought he heard Gazelle mutter, “You need it,” and Valentine shush her and laugh softly, but he ignored them, checking his watch absently. He had an hour and a half before he was meant to meet Eggsy, and while he could technically just appear there with no need to worry about lateness, and though he had certainly returned Eggsy to his new flat enough times to make the journey in his sleep, Harry had something he wanted to do first. 

*   *   *

And so two o’clock found Harry waiting in front of the flat Eggsy and his mother lived in. He had picked up a few yellow roses on the way, and when Eggsy stepped out and saw him his eyes widened and he looked like he was struggling to keep back a laugh. “Hi, Harry,” he said, cheeks coloring slightly.

“I couldn’t decide if this was-” Harry hesitated, searching for the word Eggsy often used- “weird.” He waved the flowers uncertainly.

Eggsy did laugh then. He ducked his head as if to hide it. “It’s a bit strange,” he said. “Ain’t ever gotten flowers before, have I?”

Harry felt another directionless wave of irritation at anyone and everyone who had ever made Eggsy feel less than _lovely_. Harry considered telling Eggsy that he could still take his underappreciated gift elsewhere, but he decided against it. One day, perhaps, Eggsy would be able to take such a joke as it was meant. They still weren't there yet. “Well, you have now,” Harry said instead. “Might brighten the place up.”

Eggsy took the flowers. “Uh. Thank you. Let me just-”

Harry waited while Eggsy went back inside to put the flowers in water and tried to focus on the good things. Although the problems that Harry was having with Eggsy as a charge were so obvious they could probably be put in textbooks, Harry sometimes doubted that he could even have made as little progress as he had without forming a personal relationship with Eggsy.  

It had taken a campaign of quiet, gentle touches- a squeeze on his shoulder, a fingertip brushing over the back of his hand, a palm resting on the small of his back to steer him somewhere- for Eggsy to relax into casual physical displays of affection.

The first time that Eggsy had leaned into Harry’s hand on his arm it was like watching a whole new world open up.

And the first time- while they were sitting side by side in a darkened theater- that Eggsy had rested his head on Harry’s shoulder without encouragement, there was a moment where Harry felt like said world stopped turning altogether.

It did him good. Harry knew it did, knew that Eggsy’s aura had more color in it every day- but he also knew that he had himself grown too accustomed to touching Eggsy already. That after going so long without touching anyone at all he anticipated that contact far too much and would hunger after it terribly once Eggsy had fallen in love and Harry had eased his way out of Eggsy’s life for good, but for now he could enjoy it and know he was helping Eggsy in the process.

Because it _was_ helping. When Eggsy came back out and the door clicked shut behind him he was smiling, easy in himself in a way that Harry would never have imagined when they first met.    

In fact, as Harry took him in, he realized that Eggsy’s aura had finally turned a pure, clean red- a complete turnaround that Harry had sometimes despaired of ever seeing in him. Eggsy was finally ready to let someone in.

“Hi,” Eggsy said, like he’d never seen Harry before. He sounded a little breathless and he was looking at Harry with wide eyes and an open expression that Harry nevertheless couldn't seem to read.

“Hi,” Harry said in return, because in a way _he_ was seeing Eggsy for the first time- seeing the Eggsy he should have seen from the first, someone for whom the world held more possibility of hope and joy than fear and suffering.

They could finally begin, Harry thought, with a pang he couldn’t quite explain to himself. This was, after all, exactly what he had been working for. He buried the feeling, determined to enjoy this afternoon and then get to work as soon as possible. He crooked his elbow. Eggsy smiled and took his arm without hesitation.

Harry told himself that this was as it should be, and that the hard part was over.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Eggsy was all red cheeks and apologetic eyes as he explained that his mother had gotten a call from a friend who needed her, leaving Eggsy to watch his sister for most of the night._
> 
> _“Of course I don’t mind,” Harry told him immediately. “Family first.”_
> 
> _If Harry had learned anything about Eggsy, it was that no words could be truer. This was not the first time Daisy’s needs had interrupted their plans and Harry doubted it would be the last- this was, if nothing else, a reminder that Harry still had to take his time. No one deserved to find their perfect match more than Eggsy did, and Harry now knew from personal experience that said match would have to love Daisy as much as Eggsy did and not take offense at something like this._

On the day Harry had promised himself that he would float the idea of dating to Eggsy and learn his opinions and tastes on the subject, the universe decided that it had other plans and selected Daisy Unwin as its messenger.

Harry had planned to take Eggsy to dinner and bring the topic up then. He hadn’t quite figured out how he would do it- with delicacy, that much he was sure of, but he sometimes got tongue-tied whenever Eggsy smiled or took the initiative and touched Harry first for a change, and it was so much easier to tell himself to do something with delicacy than it was to actually do it. When Harry arrived and Eggsy answered the door with his arms full of his sister, Harry immediately knew that what little planning he had done would most likely be for naught.

Eggsy was all red cheeks and apologetic eyes as he explained that his mother had gotten a call from a friend who needed her, leaving Eggsy to watch his sister for most of the night. 

“Of course I don’t mind,” Harry told him immediately.  “Family first.”

If Harry had learned anything about Eggsy, it was that no words could be truer.  This was not the first time Daisy’s needs had interrupted their plans and Harry doubted it would be the last- this was, if nothing else, a reminder that Harry still had to take his time.  No one deserved to find their perfect match more than Eggsy did, and Harry now knew from personal experience that said match would have to love Daisy as much as Eggsy did and not take offense at something like this.    

Eggsy bit his lip and looked down at his bare feet, making an oddly adorable picture with the child in his arms.  “You could stay. Uh.  If you wanted.”  He lifted his chin at last, but only to look at Daisy.  “We’re making dinner, ain’t we, love?”

She nodded seriously.

“I would like that,” Harry said. “Although I’m useless in the kitchen, I warn you.”

“We’ll find something for him to do, won’t we, Daisy girl?” Eggsy said, still addressing his sister, who giggled this time but otherwise did not respond.

Harry tried to look put-upon, but he most likely failed.

Dinner- chicken soup with lots of vegetables, because Eggsy took feeding his sister a healthy diet very seriously- was like almost everything with Eggsy had been since the café, surprisingly easy. Harry decided not to start asking probing questions about Eggsy’s previous relationships, such as they were, to try to get a sense of what he liked. It didn’t seem appropriate in the moment- and if Harry was honest he also didn’t want to ruin an unexpectedly wonderful evening with shop talk.  

After dinner, Daisy disappeared for a while as Harry and Eggsy did the dishes. It too was so very easy, the two of them companionably brushing shoulders, talking about some recent films and how Eggsy’s new job was going.

When Daisy returned she slipped a hand into Harry’s while it was still damp from the water, tugging on him and saying his name in the somewhat garbled manner she always had.

He dropped into a crouch before her. He stuck in the minds of children much more than those of adults, but he had rarely been around one often enough for it to matter before. But he had spent enough time around Daisy since he and Eggsy met to conclude that the two of them understood each other. “What can I do for you, my lady?” he asked as if she were the queen.

Harry heard a giggle that he was fairly sure came from Eggsy rather than Daisy.

“Read to me,” she said.

Harry glanced up at Eggsy. “Do you mind?”

“Course not,” Eggsy said, eyes warm and steady. “Just don’t wind her up too much before bath time, yeah?”

“Naturally,” Harry agreed, and smiled at Daisy. “Lead on.”

She tugged him to the couch, where her book selection was already waiting. It was, Harry noticed, the very book Eggsy had bought for her the day they met- and from the very bookstore where Eggsy now worked, thanks to a final nudge from Merlin. She cuddled up against his side and he read aloud, not processing much about the book itself- distracted by how domestic it all was. He hadn’t thought he much missed life until Eggsy happened, but more and more often now he found himself melancholy at the thought of losing it so soon after he had found it again.

Daisy tugged on his sleeve. “Pay attention,” she instructed. “Do the voices.”

“Of course,” Harry replied, and put those thoughts from his mind. She was right, if inarticulate. It did no good to dwell on the fact that he would lose these moments when he should be savoring them instead. That, at least, would hurt no one.

When Harry was finished Daisy seemed content, and Harry set the book down next to the lamp and looked up at Eggsy, who was leaning against the kitchen doorway and glowing such a deep, brilliant red. It might have been the light and the complete nature of the change in him, but Harry could have sworn that his aura was the color of wine- that faint purple tinge a sign that not only was his heart open, it was beginning to be set on someone in particular.

But surely that was a mistake? Surely Harry would have seen that happening…

“He any good at that, Daisy girl?” Eggsy asked, interrupting Harry’s panicked thoughts.

“He’s all right,” she said critically. “He got better towards the end. And he was always better than _Sandra_.”

Sandra, a friend of their mother’s who often looked after Daisy, was her nemesis.  

Eggsy looked at the floor, laughing softly. “All right,” he said when he was recovered. “It’s time for your bath.”

She pouted, but went readily enough. Eggsy was so very good with her.

They left Harry alone with his thoughts, and Harry strained to think of someone- anyone- that Eggsy could be falling in love with, someone he at least took an interest in, and could find no one. Eggsy had not mentioned developing such feelings, and Harry would have thought he was a good enough friend- or, given how much older than Eggsy he was, perhaps even a mentor- that Eggsy _would_ mention it if he was pining- because he certainly wasn’t _dating_ , he spent too much of his time with Harry. A coworker, perhaps? Harry had picked him up from work a few times, and there were a few people who were about Eggsy’s age that seemed attractive- and were pleasant enough, given how Eggsy talked about them. If it wasn’t one of them Harry couldn’t think who it might be. The girl from the café, perhaps? They might have hit it off after Harry left, though it stung a little to think that Eggsy wouldn’t have mentioned it.

When Eggsy came back Harry was no closer to making up his mind if he was wrong about seeing that touch of purple in Eggsy’s aura or if Eggsy was interested in someone and hadn’t said so. Daisy was flushed pink and in her pajamas, and Eggsy took her to bed. “Say goodnight to Harry,” he said.

“G’night,” she told him.

“Good night,” Harry said in return.

They disappeared into Daisy’s room, and Eggsy reappeared alone not much later, having put her to bed with relative ease.

“You’re good with Daise,” Eggsy said, flopping down next to Harry on the couch.

“I’m adequate, apparently.”

Eggsy snickered. “Better than Sandra.”

“Not much difficulty in that, if Miss Daisy is to be believed.”

The snicker turned into a full bodied laugh. Eggsy looked heart-stoppingly lovely with his head thrown back, his smile wide, and his eyes closed. If he _was_ interested in someone, and they hadn’t noticed him, Harry thought they were damn fools whoever they were. Eggsy was so relaxed and easy, and there was such warmth in his eyes when he looked at Harry, that as reluctant as Harry was to bring it up he thought the opportunity was too perfect to pass up. He had to ask Eggsy if there was anyone he had his eye on.

Harry opened his mouth, but the words never came out because there was a sharp knock at the door.

Eggsy went to answer it. Harry couldn’t see the door from where he was sitting, but he heard the voice of Eggsy’s friend Jamal- immediately lowered after Eggsy informed him that Daisy was asleep- and assumed that Eggsy would want to spend some time alone with him. He retrieved his jacket and got ready to leave.

Jamal and Eggsy were still hovering in the doorway. “You’ve not properly met, have you?” Eggsy said. “Jamal, this is Harry. Harry, this is Jamal.”

“Right,” Jamal said, frowning as his eyes passed over Harry without taking too much of him in. “Harry.” He shook Harry’s hand, frown deepening. “All right?” he asked vaguely.

Harry nodded awkwardly to him, slinging his coat over his arm. “Eggsy, I should go.”

“No,” Eggsy said immediately. “Stay.”

Even though he already had an idea of how badly the rest of the evening would probably go, Harry said, “All right,” and put his coat back down.

Eggsy made tea and Harry held his cup cradled in his hands and let the conversation wash over him. Mainly Eggsy and Jamal caught up with each other, talking about their respective jobs and families and tossing out in-jokes that despite Eggsy’s obvious efforts tended to go over Harry’s head.

More than once, Eggsy tried to draw Harry into the conversation. Harry told anecdotes and gave his opinion when pressed, but for the most part he kept it to a minimum. Jamal clearly _tried_ to listen to him, but as soon as Harry stopped talking he quickly changed the subject. It wasn’t his fault; Harry was just boring to most people. Part of the spell or energy or whatever it was that made him unnoticeable meant that the things he said didn’t stick in people’s heads. If Harry had told a story about how he had climbed to the top of Mount Everest, returned with the head of a yeti, and been knighted by the queen for his troubles, it would still be one of the dullest things Jamal had ever heard.

Harry didn’t mind. He had been a bit worried that the steady diet of Eggsy’s attention would give him a taste for it, but Harry found that he really couldn’t care less if Jamal found him interesting or not. It only mattered to him at all because Eggsy got more and more uncomfortable as the conversation wore on.

Harry excused himself and lingered in the hall for a time in order to give the two of them some privacy. When he came back out, Eggsy was alone washing teacups in the kitchen. “What happened to Jamal?” he asked.

“He had to go,” Eggsy said, back to Harry. “He said goodbye.” That last part was clearly a lie; Harry found it oddly warming that Eggsy was trying to spare his feelings that way.

But then Eggsy looked at Harry and the warmth fled. He looked miserable- worse than Harry had seen him since perhaps the day Harry first walked him home and saw his mother’s black eye. Harry had no earthly idea what was going on, but it had affected Eggsy profoundly- so much that when Harry looked at it his aura was actually fluctuating, hints of grey swirling through it for the first time in several weeks.

“What’s the matter?” Harry asked, immediately crossing to Eggsy and gripping his upper arms. It had become so second nature to touch him that it didn’t occur to Harry that it might not be a good idea until Eggsy had already stiffened under his hands. But before Harry could back off Eggsy gave a soft whining noise and collapsed against his chest, his fingers curling into fists against the fabric of Harry’s shirt. “Darling,” Harry murmured, the endearment slipping thoughtlessly off his tongue. His hands slid up to Eggsy’s shoulders and then around his back. “What is it?”

Eggsy made a strangled noise. “Look, Harry, I get that you’re a gentleman and all, but you can’t pretend like you didn’t notice how rude he was to you.”

Harry was silent for a moment, stunned. He had seen- of course he had seen- that Eggsy felt awkward about the way Jamal was ignoring Harry- but he hadn’t thought for a second that he was _that_ upset. “I suppose he was,” Harry said, hesitantly, to fill the silence. He really should have left when Jamal arrived, but he hadn’t because Eggsy had so clearly wanted him to stay- probably because he had wanted Harry to meet his friend. Ah. “But Eggsy, he was here to see you, not get to know me. We don’t exactly have a great deal in common.”

“Like you and me, you mean.” Eggsy sounded even more hurt.

“That’s different, Eggsy. I’m sure we were both surprised by how well we… fit, I suppose. But it was still work in the beginning. It’s natural for you to want your friends to like me and vice versa, but you can’t expect it to happen right away. I’m sure they find what we have… odd.” Harry was stretching the truth with that last remark, but he knew that Eggsy’s friends and family would find it odd if they could remember Harry long enough to form opinions. Harry had thought so little about his appearance for so long, but he must have looked at least twice Eggsy’s age, and the way that he dressed, and the way that he behaved… His friendship with someone like Eggsy would look very odd indeed. “I wouldn’t mind having you to myself for a little while longer.” And _that_ was entirely too true, given that it was exactly the opposite of what Harry was meant to be doing. “I wasn’t offended, Eggsy, and I certainly won’t let it drive me away. Unless, of course, you want it to.” He couldn’t help the way he tightened his grip on Eggsy when he said that last part. He didn’t know how he would do his job without being near Eggsy so much if he couldn’t do it while they were practically living in each other’s pockets- and what was more, he didn’t want to see less of Eggsy, not at all. But if Eggsy wanted him gone, if somehow his presence was making Eggsy shut down again…

“No.” Eggsy’s head came up sharply, and Harry saw him flush. “No, Harry, I don’t want that at all.”

“Good,” Harry said, and smiled, and pulled Eggsy to his chest again. “Good.”

He held Eggsy like that for such a long time that he began to wonder if it wasn’t awkward. He liked having Eggsy in his arms much more than he should under the circumstances- but when he tried to let Eggsy go Eggsy whined softly and burrowed closer. Harry considered pretending to be annoyed but decided against it. Instead he kept Eggsy close but steered him to the couch, returning to where he had been sitting while he read to Daisy.

Eggsy rested his head on Harry’s chest, the rest of him all but in Harry’s lap, and Harry kept his arms around him, rubbing his back gently. He was a little surprised when Eggsy dozed off like that, but Harry would be lying to himself if he tried to act like he minded. He couldn’t have been happier to have finally won Eggsy’s trust so completely.

Harry was more surprised still when Eggsy slept through his mother coming home. Michelle passed through the living room and eyed them both. Harry’s normal tendency to pass outside anyone’s notice warred with a mother’s natural instinct to find it noteworthy when she saw her son asleep in the lap of a well-dressed man she had never seen before. Harry didn’t want to wake Eggsy; having his mother treat Harry the same way Jamal had would probably make things worse again when Harry had only just managed to make them better. “Goodnight,” Harry said to her, casually, as if this was something that happened regularly.

Michelle’s mind gripped that explanation and clung to it. “Goodnight,” she said vaguely, and she drifted away, the shower starting a few minutes later.

Harry wasn’t sure how much time passed before he felt Eggsy shift slightly against him, blinking sleepy eyes.

“Sorry,” Eggsy mumbled. “Didn’t know I was that tired.”

“It’s no trouble,” Harry said, absently pulling Eggsy up and tugging him toward his bedroom.

“Gonna tuck me in?”

“That’s the idea.” Harry had to pour Eggsy into his bed, glad he was wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt rather than street clothes so Harry didn’t have to rouse him enough to change into pajamas. As Harry lifted the bedclothes to cover him, Eggsy gripped his wrist.

“Stay,” he said quietly. He said something else, too slurred for Harry to make out any detail, and Harry pulled the covers around him.

“All right,” Harry murmured. On impulse he kissed Eggsy’s forehead, and if the touch lingered a little too long he blamed it on sentimentality and the lateness of the hour.

He returned to the couch and lay down on it.

Harry didn’t sleep, as such- he just sort of… dropped out of the mortal plane for a while until he was next required. Lately he’d been avoiding that, but he felt oddly safe and grounded in Eggsy’s home, and he began to drift almost the moment he settled.

If his lips tingled a little from where they had touched Eggsy’s skin, Harry ignored it. It had been a very long time since he had done anything like that, and Eggsy felt so nice.

His last thought as he drifted away was that it didn’t- couldn’t- mean anything more.

*   *   *

When Harry came back to himself it was daylight, and Eggsy was sitting on the table in front of the couch, a cup of coffee in his hands and a frown on his face.

“Hello,” Harry managed.

Eggsy’s smile was lightning quick but still a little uncertain. “Hey,” he said, then hesitated. “You really didn’t have to sleep on the couch.”

It wasn’t much of a surprise that in the cold light of day Eggsy was embarrassed by having asked Harry to stay. And if Harry had been strictly human his body would have been much less forgiving of a night on the couch, but as it was he felt fine- good, even. “It was no trouble.”

Eggsy’s frown deepened, but then he rolled his eyes as if he should have expected nothing else. “Here,” he said. “I made you coffee.”

“Thank you.” Harry took it, warming his hands and gazing inside for a moment. Harry had helped Eggsy pick out the coffee machine for his mother’s birthday about a month back, and Eggsy was not yet proficient at making designs in the steamed milk, but he certainly gave it his all. It looked to Harry like a heart that had gone a bit wrong at the last minute, and God only knew what it was meant to be, but the thought was charming and Harry was developing a taste for the beverage. He flashed Eggsy a smile before taking a sip. “I would have expected more of a racket around here in the morning,” he remarked.

Eggsy had smiled back at him, and at this question his expression lightened even further. “Give it time. She’s still asleep.”

Accordingly, Harry kept his laugh quiet.

“Look,” Eggsy started, “I gotta go to work, okay?”

“Right,” Harry said, resolving to get moving quickly. He would prefer to avoid another run in with Eggsy’s mother. He sipped his coffee and regarded Eggsy thoughtfully. In daylight and with coffee in him, Harry could see that he had not been wrong before. Eggsy’s red aura _was_ turning purple- in a fact, it was a deeper purple than Harry had thought. Eggsy really did like someone, and- by the looks of it- a great deal at that.

Instead of worrying- as he had only the night before- that Eggsy might never introduce him to this person, might never confide in Harry about them, Harry caught himself hoping they would turn out to be a bad match so Harry could have more time.

He put on a smile, rattled by his own train of thought and worried that- if he was becoming so selfish about a charge’s happiness- he might be reaching the end of his usefulness. “Right,” he said again.

Eggsy seemed to pick on Harry’s change of mood, and his shoulders slumped slightly. “Is- uh- is everything okay?”

“I’m fine,” Harry said, catching his hand. He was determined not to let his own issues ruin Eggsy’s chances, whatever they might be. “I have a bit of a headache, that’s all.”

“But I’ll see you around?”

“Of course, darling.” Harry kissed the back of Eggsy’s hand. It was something he had done without thinking once or twice before and found that it unfailingly made Eggsy smile. Eggsy colored beautifully, and did indeed smile for him.

“You called me that last night,” Eggsy said haltingly. “Darling.”

“Would you like me to stop?”

Eggsy shook his head. “No. No, I like it.” He looked down, flush deepening. “I gotta go. You can stay as long as you like. And I’ll see you, yeah?”

“Of course,” Harry repeated.

Eggsy smiled.

*   *   *

As had become his habit when he was worried that he might be failing Eggsy, Harry checked in on Amelia. In the time that Harry had been becoming a part of Eggsy’s life, building their friendship, Amelia had been planning her wedding. It had been a shorter engagement- and would be a simpler wedding- than many, but if ever there had been a match Harry could be proud of, it was Amelia and Roxy. They were so very well suited to each other.

The two of them were currently sharing a cupcake after spending an afternoon tasting samples for their cake. Harry nursed a cup of tea and watched the two of them gaze into each other’s eyes. Harry didn’t think he’d been in love like that when he was alive. He was sure that he would remember if he had.

A man in a suit just like Harry’s dropped into the seat opposite him. “Do you know, I think I see more of you now than I did when they were dating?”

Harry regarded Percival, Roxy’s cupid. He was mousy-faced and quiet but undeniably good at his job, which was why he had been assigned to her in the first place. She had been a tough nut to crack; ex-military, working corporate security now, she had been very busy being successful in a career path that was not always kind to women and didn’t seem to have time for personal relationships of any kind, let alone dating. Percival had been working with her for some time before she met Amelia in a bar and their surprisingly fruitful conversation had been cut short when Roxy was called in to a work crisis and she forgot all about Amelia. Percival hadn’t thought that she and Amelia- gentle, shy Amelia who had had a bad time of her last relationship but so wanted someone to come home to her- would be a good fit. But Harry had persevered, "accidentally" bumping into Roxy and spilling lukewarm coffee down her shirt just next to Amelia’s flat as she was walking by. Amelia had been happy to loan her something, and it was then that Roxy had looked at her and said, ‘We’ve met before, haven’t we?’

Everything after that had been as textbook perfect as Harry’s experience with Eggsy was unusual.

“It wasn’t a long courtship,” Harry pointed out. “It’s possible you never noticed a pattern.”

“It’s possible,” Percival agreed, nodding slowly. “But it isn’t what happened. You’re hanging around more than you did.”

“Which you wouldn’t notice if you weren’t hanging around all the time yourself.”

Percival snorted softly and then sighed. “I’m sure it’s all fun and games from your end, but Roxy gets cold feet at least once a week. I may have doubted you in the beginning but I don’t anymore; this is right, she just panics that she won’t be able to make Amelia happy.”

“At least once a week, you say?”

“A slight exaggeration. But it’s often enough. Anyway, I like all the food tasting. It’s a learning experience.”

Harry laughed quietly.

“So,” Percival pressed, “why are you here?”

“I’m having a bit of trouble with my new charge,” Harry admitted.

“The one who can see you?”

Harry put down his cup of tea and gave Percival a hard look. “How do you know about that?” he asked.

“ _Every_ one knows about that.”

“Merlin made it sound like something that just… happens now and then. And Valentine hasn’t remarked on it at all, though he must know himself.”

“I’ve never heard of anything like it.”

“No,” Harry sighed. “No, nor have I.” He picked up his cup again and took another sip. It was getting cold and no one was going to come over and ask him if he wanted a refill. If Eggsy was here… Harry put the cup back down, angry with himself all over again. “It’s been difficult, establishing the… friendship I have with him. He’s… oddly delicate. It’s so easy- too easy- to shut him down again. It doesn’t seem right that so much should be in my hands.”

“Do you have any good prospects?”

“That’s part of the problem. I can’t just hang around him and not be noticed. Either we happen on someone who seems to take an interest- which has happened only once- or he has to introduce me to that person, which never fails to make everything worse, because they just ignore me, and he thinks they’re being rude to his friend. At any rate, he does like someone, but as it stands I don’t know who they are and I have no idea how to change that.”

“That _is_ complicated,” Percival agreed. “You know, the annual review is coming up.”  

Harry groaned. “How could I forget?” Periodically, their boss Arthur met with each and every one of them and judged their choices. As Harry recalled, the review was still a few months way, but suddenly that seemed far too soon.

“You could ask for your charge- Gary was his name?- to be given to someone else. It’s possible that he can only see _you_ , so someone else would be able to do what you can’t. And if he can see all of us, we would be prepared for that and come into his life in a way that makes more sense to the purpose. As a member of a matchmaking service, maybe, and he won a free trial.”

“Eggsy,” Harry said.

“What?”

“His name is Gary, but… he likes to be called Eggsy.” He didn’t know what to say to everything else. Like most things Percival said it was imminently sensible. Harry couldn’t explain why he hated the idea of passing Eggsy over to someone else, but he did. He loathed the very thought.

“Eggsy, then,” Percival said slowly. He frowned across the table at Harry like he was working on a particularly thorny problem. “Harry, have you considered that-”

“I’ll think about it,” Harry said quickly. “I will, it’s… it’s good advice.”

*   *   *

It _was_ good advice, and Harry thought about it all the way up until he saw Eggsy again.

That was almost a week later. Just when Harry had begun to think something might have gone wrong again, Eggsy had called to ask if Harry wanted to meet for lunch, perhaps at the café where they had run into each other that time.

Perhaps, Harry thought, given his interest in the place, it was the girl who worked in that very café that Eggsy liked after all.

Harry’s feelings on the subject were unfortunately mixed, and that was probably why he found himself running a little late when he got there. Eggsy was already sitting at the same table that Harry had been when he asked if they could see more of each other. The girl from before- Tilde- was there too and she was flirting with Eggsy as if her life depended on it.

Harry ordered something quickly. He hardly thought about what it was, because Eggsy’s eyes kept flicking over to him, something frightened and faintly pleading in them. Eggsy was so warm and pleasant to be around once you got past his prickly exterior that it was difficult for Harry to believe that he might be so bad with women that he needed a rescue- a rescue Harry was hardly in a position to give.

Before Harry was close enough to hear him, Eggsy said something to Tilde that did not appear to be well received. She glanced at Harry, looking confused, and then shrugged and drew away. Her aura was still only a bit red, and there wasn’t a trace of purple in sight. If she liked Eggsy it was physical, a passing interest, so Harry supposed it was just as well. He tried to ignore the strange feeling in his chest, as if something had been gripping his heart and squeezing it, and had only just now let it go.  

“Sorry,” Eggsy said when Harry sat down across from him.

“What for?” Harry asked. He reached out to Eggsy but then hesitated, wondering if he should in a public place, especially with Tilde watching. But if Eggsy was interested in her he would have made it plain, so Harry took his hand.

Eggsy gripped him back hard, and after a brief hesitation of his own raised Harry’s hand to his lips and kissed the knuckles. Harry was surprised. Embarrassing physical displays of affection had thus far been primarily Harry’s purview, and it seemed… odd- heavier- coming from Eggsy. But perhaps that was what Eggsy had wanted him to come over so quickly for. If Eggsy was emphatically not interested in this girl, he could well have implied to her that he and Harry were… more than friends. Indeed, Harry saw her glance their way and frown, as if she didn’t know what Eggsy saw in someone like Harry but wasn't especially bothered about it either.

 _Just as well_ , Harry thought again, though it did make the question of who Eggsy had his eye on even more complicated.

Another waitress brought Harry what he’d ordered, a drink and nothing else.

Eggsy looked oddly relieved. “You aren’t staying?”

“I stopped by a bakery earlier,” Harry explained, deciding to imply that he had eaten already since he couldn’t very well admit that he hadn’t been hungry today and didn’t technically need to eat. He had been back to the shop Amelia had decided to order the wedding cake from, and he’d bought Eggsy a cupcake in the flavor the two women had favored. “I bought you something.”            

Eggsy peered into the bag Harry had with him. He flushed but looked pleased. “Thank you, Harry.”

Harry gave him a smile.

Eggsy finished his lunch quickly, and he and Harry walked to a nearby park while Eggsy told him stories from his work. Harry listened carefully as Eggsy picked out a bench, trying to determine from how Eggsy talked if it was one of his coworkers he was interested in. However much Harry strained, he couldn’t pick up a clear preference for anyone.  

Eggsy paused in his storytelling, and the look of bliss on his face as he tried the cupcake would have been worth any amount of trouble. “Have you tasted this?” Eggsy asked.

Harry shook his head, and accepted the cake when Eggsy passed it to him to try. He went still, arrested by how Eggsy looked, smiling messily with a bit of frosting on his nose. Harry tried the cake, which was as good as Amelia had claimed but nowhere near as sweet as Eggsy’s expression. “Thank you,” Harry said. He passed the dessert back and then produced a handkerchief, wiping Eggsy’s nose with it.

It occurred to him that he had seen a markedly similar exchange between Roxy and Amelia, and that it would certainly look that way to anyone passing them now. The notion- odd and surely silly- so occupied Harry’s mind that he didn’t at first notice Eggsy clearly wrestling with himself over whether or not to say something.

“Harry,” Eggsy said at last.

“Yes?” Harry banished his earlier train of thought immediately. Dealing with the anxiety that he could hear in Eggsy’s tone was much more important.

“You don’t talk much about the people in your life. And I ain’t met any of them.”

Harry stopped and stared at Eggsy. He had, in fact, told Eggsy a few much edited stories about his colleagues at the “tailor’s shop.” But of course Eggsy hadn’t met anyone from Harry’s life- he had no one apart from his coworkers, and until his talk with Percival just recently it had never occurred to Harry that Eggsy might be able to meet any of them at all.

But now that Eggsy mentioned it Harry could see that it was bothering him. After the effort he had gone through to bring Harry into his family and introduce him to his friends- and given his ingrained tendency to worry that he wasn’t good enough- it seemed unavoidable that Eggsy would draw the conclusion that Harry was ashamed of him.        

“Eggsy,” Harry said at last. “The fact is I’m not friendly with many people. But…”

But, given what he had talked to Percival about and how valid it was, it seemed like a good idea that Eggsy meet another cupid as a friend of Harry’s. It would be a low stakes way to determine if Eggsy was aware of them the same way he was of Harry. The problem, of course, was that if they were as unnoticeable to Eggsy as Harry was to everyone else, it would be awkward. If Harry went through all the trouble of organizing a lunch together, or something to that effect, Eggsy would want to like Harry’s friends, and feel embarrassed when they simply didn’t stick in his mind.    

No, somewhere public would be better. Somewhere Eggsy could brush someone Harry knew who was indescribably boring off as just that without feeling he’d let Harry down. Somewhere where Eggsy could meet people, get used to Harry as the kind of friend he could do that in front of, and- maybe with a little drink in him- mention who in his life had caught his eye.

“But?” Eggsy pressed, waiting.

“But I do know someone who’s getting married in a little while and I’ve been invited to their wedding. Would you like to come?”

“Harry,” Eggsy half-choked. “Fuck. Uh. Yeah. Yeah, I would. I don’t really got nothing to wear, though.”

“That’s all right,” Harry said immediately. “As I’ve told you, I work in a tailor’s shop.”

*   *   *

“You know, if you spend much more time down here you’re gonna start making Gazzy jealous,” Valentine said.

Harry doubted that. The last time he had seen Gazelle she had been in the tailor’s shop proper rather than the Archive. Harry had been there with Eggsy, picking up the suit that Eggsy had agreed to be fitted for, and Gazelle certainly hadn’t looked jealous. She had looked like she always did, lately- as though she was laughing at some kind of private joke. Instead of bringing that up, Harry said, “She should be. My constant presence will wear you down.”

Valentine snorted. “Like you’re my type.”

Harry pulled his sad puppy face, which Harry was the first to admit wasn’t very convincing even if it seemed to work on Eggsy like a charm. Lately, one such look was all it took to persuade Eggsy to let Harry take him to the kind of restaurant that Eggsy was sure they wouldn’t let him or his trainers into- though Eggsy always insisted on balancing the scales by dragging Harry in turn to the greasiest, cheapest, most out of the way places he could find.

It made Valentine laugh, at least. “Like I’m your type,” he added, which was a bit odder. Unlike Valentine and Gazelle or any of the other couples in their ranks, Harry had never been interested in starting a relationship with one of his colleagues. It had never seemed quite right to him, and he hadn’t felt especially isolated until Eggsy came into his life.

Things had changed between them after Harry asked Eggsy to the wedding, in ways that Harry couldn’t quite define. “Cultural experiences”, as Harry might have dubbed them, had given way to quiet dinners, and trips to the theatre had become movie nights on the couch. Eggsy had grown less shy of asking Harry over when he was watching Daisy for the night, and he had in turn spent the evening in Harry’s home many times. Thanks to him, Harry had been there more often in the last few weeks than he had in the previous few decades. In that time, he had discovered that Eggsy cried during Disney movies and that his own eyes didn’t always stay perfectly dry either. He had learned that no matter how much Eggsy tried to eat healthy and be a good example for his sister he still couldn’t stomach Brussels sprouts. And he had always known that Eggsy would do anything for his family, but he had been amazed- and flattered- by how easily Eggsy had brought him into it. Harry had still managed to avoid spending much time with Eggsy’s mother, but he had heard enough affectionate stories from Eggsy to feel as though he knew her- and he certainly felt like a part of Daisy’s life. He had seen her laughing in the park and crying over a skinned knee. He had seen her sick with a fever and proudly showing off the stories she had concocted about her stuffed animals. Harry wondered, sometimes, how he lived without these things- large and small- before.

Valentine gave Harry a long look and then shook his head, lips twitching like he was in on the same joke as Gazelle. “Logging ‘no progress’ again, are we Galahad?” he asked.  

Harry nodded absently, still lost in thought. When he was around Eggsy, it was entirely too easy to forget everything else- it was when he made his regular pilgrimage to the Archive to report that there had been no further changes that it truly occurred to him how badly things were going.  

He spent as much time as ever listening carefully to the stories Eggsy told, searching for some sign of interest in anyone he talked about, and he still had yet to find one. The purple flush in Eggsy’s aura deepened every day- but strangely enough he never seemed sorrowful, never seemed like he was waiting for someone to finally recognize his interest for what it was. To Harry’s eye, Eggsy seemed happy, comfortable, secure- all the things Harry had come into this knowing Eggsy would need before he could fall in love with anyone.

The more Harry came to know Eggsy, the more it confused him that men and women alike weren’t tripping over each other to be with him.

“And will that be all?” Valentine asked.

“Yes,” Harry replied. Valentine waved to whoever was next on his roster and Harry turned away, almost colliding with them.

It was Merlin, and he stopped Harry, catching him by the sleeve. “I heard you were intending to take that boy with you to Roxy and Amelia’s wedding.”

“Yes,” Harry said slowly. He didn’t ask how the hell Merlin knew.

Merlin’s eyes glinted. “I got him on the guest list.”

Harry knew it was best not to ask how Merlin had achieved that either. “Thank you,” he said instead. Getting into weddings was always easy for Harry, but it would have been less so for Eggsy even if he looked the part.

“You’re welcome,” Merlin replied. “How’s it coming with him, anyway?”

“Just fine.” Harry may have sounded a little defensive.

Merlin put up his hands. “All right, all right, off with you, then.”

Harry made his way out the door, but before he left the Archive he heard Valentine ask what he could do for Merlin, and heard Merlin growl, “You know exactly what I’m filing,” at him.

That struck Harry as odd, because as far as he knew Merlin didn’t actively match people- he was more management- but he quickly forgot all about it.

*   *   *

Amelia and Roxy’s wedding was simply lovely, though not quite as lovely as Eggsy looked in the suit the Kingsman tailors had made for him. At the reception as many as five young people made it clear that they shared this opinion- asking Eggsy to dance and drawing him into conversation. But Eggsy stayed stubbornly at Harry’s side, suggesting to him once again that he had no real interest in meeting someone.

Percival was there, of course. He was in a relationship with another cupid, Lancelot, who was there with him. Harry had always found Lancelot a little abrasive, but- given what he was- Harry felt obligated to be warmed by how besotted by Percival he had always been, so Lancelot had that in his favor.

Harry had introduced them to Eggsy before the ceremony, and, when they went their separate ways, Eggsy- a gleam of anxiety in his eye and an expression of exaggerated casualness on his face- had leaned close to Harry and said, “Dull as fuck, those two, eh?”

“Yes,” Harry said, trying to breathe evenly. “Yes, I suppose they are.” It was mildly terrifying, knowing for sure that he was the only one Eggsy noticed but still having no idea why. What was more, it proved to him that Percival was right- Harry could easily pass Eggsy off to another cupid who would have a much simpler time of it- and probably get Eggsy the love he deserved.

Eggsy took Harry’s hand. “You all right?”

“Of course,” Harry said quickly. “Just- uh- weddings. That’s all.”

“Yeah,” Eggsy replied. He had held Harry’s hand tightly through the whole ceremony.

By the reception, Harry was still distracted by the truth that not only could he give Eggsy up, it would be the best thing for him. Eggsy’s arm was warm and perfect against his shoulder, his smile as he made observations about their fellow guests was a gift, and Harry was very much afraid that Eggsy wasn’t dancing, wasn’t mingling, because he was worried about Harry and didn’t want to leave him alone in this state. Harry was facing the very real possibility that he was holding Eggsy back, that he had been all this time.

Eggsy touched Harry’s face. “Hey, now,” he said, those lovely sea-colored eyes glowing with concern and affection. “Talk to me.”

“What about?” Harry managed.

“I dunno. How about you tell me how you know the brides?”

“I hardly know them at all. The fact is, I’ve walked past Amelia’s flat most days for years. We saw each other now and then but it wasn’t exactly a relationship. I happened to run into Roxy passing by there one day, spilled coffee on her shirt, and Amelia happened to see it and loan her a change of clothes.”

“You’re the reason they got together?” Eggsy sounded amused, and when Harry looked at his face the wideness of his smile was breathtaking.

“More or less.”

“Wow. Hell of a twist of fate, yeah? And they fell in love?”

“Maybe that’s how I planned it,” Harry said, realizing that the joke hit a little too close to home only when it was already out of his mouth.

“Oh, you’re a matchmaker, are you?”

“Maybe I am.”

Eggsy sat back in the chair next to Harry’s and surveyed the room. He looked very pleased with himself, perhaps primarily because he’d managed to draw Harry out of his bad mood. “All right,” he said. “Pick somebody out, then.”

Harry’s heart practically stopped. Here Eggsy was, asking him to actually do his job, and Harry wanted to do nothing of the kind. He didn’t even know why the idea made him feel like his blood had frozen in his veins, but it did. In that moment there was nothing Harry wanted less than for Eggsy to leave his side, even for a moment. Still, he looked around. His eyes settled on a young man called Hugo, an old school friend of Amelia’s that Harry had briefly considered as having the potential to be something more. He was the kind of boy Eggsy would normally have no time for, but given the chance they might find they had complementing personalities. Harry pointed. “Him.”

Eggsy looked skeptical, but then he shrugged and made his way over, striking up a conversation with Hugo with all the ease he had lacked with the girl in the café.

This was exactly what Harry was supposed to want. He felt sick to his stomach.

Eggsy talked to Hugo for a good while, bid him what looked like a reasonably fond farewell, and returned to Harry. He flopped down in the chair next to him, legs spread wide, posture terrible, and let out a long breath. “Well, he’s a prat, isn’t he? He ain’t so bad after a few icebreakers, though, and I guess even posh wankers deserve to find true love. All right-” Eggsy sounded as if he was making a great concession- “who do you like for him?”

Harry kept still as a wave of relief so strong it made him dizzy washed over him. Eggsy thought they were playing a game, and hadn’t for a second considered Hugo as a potential partner. Given that reception, Harry could hardly say now that he had meant that Eggsy might like him. It would ruin his credibility and quickly shut the window he had opened for himself as someone interested in such things. Better to take this slowly and let Eggsy open up to him on the subject in time. Better to play this off for now. Harry scanned the crowd for someone, anyone, and out of the corner of his eye he noticed Eggsy doing the same.

“Fuck,” Eggsy said, going still.

“What is it?”

“That guy.” He nodded to another school friend of Amelia’s- Charlie Hesketh was his name, and Harry had definitely never considered _him_ as having the potential to be something more. He was her friend because he was the kind of person no one wanted to alienate and yet never actually liked. Eggsy did not sound happy. “I know him.”

Harry blinked, momentarily so awed by the proverbial smallness of the world that he didn’t really think about what he was saying. “In what capacity?”

“He was a- a customer.”

Harry had not thought about the things Eggsy used to do in some time, since most had ceased even before his stepfather was out of the picture and were now very much a thing of the past. But now it was coming into play again. Given the look on Eggsy’s face and the way he held himself when Hesketh leered and walked over, it was in Eggsy’s capacity as a rent boy that he had known Hesketh, and it was not a relationship Eggsy had any desire to renew.

Hesketh took them both in with a look that suggested he had a very clear idea of how they knew each other, what Eggsy was doing here with a man so much older than he was, and so very dull. Harry saw it in Eggsy’s face when he realized the same things. He went very pale and hung his head.

“Well, well, well,” Hesketh said when he got close. “Look who’s gone up in the world.”

Hesketh’s aura was the particular shade of red that meant intense sexual attraction, but no interest- or possibility of interest- in anything _but_ sex. It wasn’t something that Harry was supposed to manipulate without doing mountains of paperwork beforehand, because turning interest away rather than fostering it was a big thing to do, no matter how obviously good for his charge making Hesketh go away would be. But Harry did it anyway. If he was able to be intimidating he would have done that- allowed Hesketh to go on believing that Eggsy was in a relationship with Harry and scare him off that way- but he wasn’t. He stood, put a hand on Hesketh’s arm, and whispered in his ear, “You should go before you embarrass yourself any further.”

At the same time, Harry turned Hesketh’s interest so far from Eggsy that Eggsy would, in that moment, be so unattractive to him that Hesketh would be genuinely ashamed to have ever paid him for sex.

“Yeah,” Hesketh said, going pale. “Yeah.”

He took himself off with admirable quickness, not that Harry had much time to enjoy it. He caught Percival and Lancelot watching him. Percival was frowning- likely at the misuse of power- and Lancelot… well, it was difficult for Harry to figure out what, exactly, the smirk on Lancelot’ face was about, but he looked entirely too amused about something for Harry’s liking.

“Can we go?” Eggsy asked, tugging on Harry’s sleeve.

“Of course,” Harry said, entirely happy to oblige. The review was coming up- the review would take place over the next few days- and he would have to justify every little thing he’d ever done, including that, to his boss. Until then, Harry was going to take care of Eggsy and he damn well wasn’t going to apologize to anyone for it. He put a light hand against the small of Eggsy’s back and steered him out of the ballroom.

“That was cool,” Eggsy said when they were outside. “I dunno what you said that made him run off like that, but it was pretty fucking cool.”

“Then why don’t you look very happy?” Harry asked.

Eggsy stopped, biting his lip. “I guess I liked to think that you didn’t know,” he said. “About- uh- about what I used to do.”

“I’ve always known,” Harry said. It didn’t occur to him for a second to lie.

Eggsy made a soft, sad noise.

Harry touched his chin, lifting it so that Eggsy would meet his eyes. “You can’t think that I care about that.”

“Don’t you?”

“I care that you were ever in a position that you felt it was your only choice. If I could go back in time and change that I would. But I would never ever think less of you for it. All I care about is that whatever happened in the past does not keep you from being happy now.”

The warm light slowly came back into Eggsy’s eyes. “Fuck,” he whispered. “Harry.” He leaned closer to Harry. Harry let his hand slide back, his fingers carding through Eggsy’s hair, his palm cradling the back of his skull, and drew him closer still, pressing their foreheads together. For a few moments, they simply breathed in tandem. “Harry,” Eggsy whispered again, angling closer still.

Harry kissed his forehead. “Let’s get you home.”

Eggsy stopped again almost the moment he started walking. He looked frustrated, perhaps with his own insecurities. “It _really_ don’t bother you?”

Harry pulled Eggsy into his arms. “Of course not.”

Eggsy returned the hug, arms strong around his middle, but Harry was beginning to think it was Harry that Eggsy was frustrated with, rather than himself, when Eggsy said, “You sure?” as though he was calling Harry out on something they should both have been able to see.      

But Harry didn’t know how to make himself any clearer, so he simply said, “Yes,” firmly, pressed a kiss to the side of Eggsy’s head, and drew away.

“All right,” Eggsy said, and sighed, and finally walked with Harry.

“Eggsy,” Harry said after a while. “I may be busy for the next few days. It’s a work thing. If you don’t hear from me for a while, don’t think-”

“That it’s to do with me?”

“Exactly.”

“All right,” Eggsy said again. There was doubt in his voice that Harry really didn’t know what to do about, and for all he knew he’d never see Eggsy again after the review. He didn’t want to fight with him. He just wanted to see Eggsy home. “Mum and Daisy went to the country for a couple of days,” Eggsy told Harry when they were close. “Visiting my aunt.”

Harry blinked. “You needn’t have come with me if you were meant to be seeing family.”

“It’s fine,” Eggsy said firmly. “All I’m saying is that I got the flat to myself. You could-” he swallowed heavily. “You could stay.”

And Harry wanted to. He loved cooking dinner with Eggsy- which mainly consisted of chopping vegetables while Eggsy did most of the hard work. He loved talking to him until it was late. He loved tucking Eggsy into bed when he was exhausted, and he didn’t even mind spending the night on Eggsy’s couch. If this was to be the last time he saw Eggsy, Harry wanted to spend the night that way. But God, if he had to give him up it would be so much harder with every reason he didn’t want to so close at hand. Eggsy was his charge but at this point he was also the best friend he’d ever had. Harry had to make what was the best choice for Eggsy, not the best choice for himself, and to do that he had to hang on to the last vestiges of his objectivity. “I’d like to,” he said, hoping Eggsy would hear in his voice how true that was. “But I have a very early start tomorrow morning.”

Eggsy nodded, looking unusually embarrassed, and Harry pulled him into another hug. If he held him longer and tighter than he ever had before, Harry didn’t think he could be blamed for it. He pressed his face into Eggsy’s hair and inhaled, trying to memorize his scent.

“See you in a few days, yeah?” Eggsy said, voice muffled by Harry’s shoulder.

“Yes,” Harry agreed, wishing he knew that he could keep that promise.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“So everything appears to be in order,” Arthur told Harry like an accusation towards the end of the review._
> 
> _“Not quite,” Harry admitted._
> 
> _He had never seen his superior perk up so fast._

The review wasn’t quite the nightmare Harry remembered it being. Perhaps it was having a success like Amelia under his belt, but Arthur found little fault with him. He found little fault with him for what amounted to two days earth-time in his large office at HQ; through it all, Arthur’s eyes were narrowed and his expression was suspicious, as if he thought Harry was probably trying to put one over on him by having done nothing wrong.

Harry enjoyed riling Arthur. Until he met Eggsy it had been one of the primary joys of his life. That said, he also spent every minute of the review waiting for Arthur to gleefully bring out Eggsy as his final weapon, because all the Amelias in the world couldn’t make up for that.

But Arthur never did. Harry wondered if it was possible that Merlin and Valentine and Percival and Lancelot and all of the other people who according to Percival knew the whole story were covering for him; it was flattering but ultimately foolish if they were. Harry didn’t want Eggsy to be given to another cupid, he didn’t want to be given another charge, but it struck him as very likely that that was exactly what was needed. He was failing with Eggsy, and every time he resigned himself to do better he forgot again because he liked being around Eggsy better than he liked doing his job.

“So everything appears to be in order,” Arthur told Harry like an accusation towards the end of the review.

“Not quite,” Harry admitted.

He had never seen his superior perk up so fast.

“It’s my current charge, Eggsy. I’m having trouble with him and I believe drastic steps may need to be taken.” Harry said the last part quickly, sure he would lose his nerve otherwise. “Someone else should probably take over his case.”

“What problems are you having?”

“The most basic one can have. I’m finding it impossible to choose a match for him and engineer a meeting between them. I suspect that he’s found someone on his own, but I have not yet seen this person to judge their suitability.”

“How is that possible? Does he spend no time with this person?”

“He _must_.” Harry’s personal frustration with the situation came out in his voice, turning it sharp and low.

“Then how can you not have seen them?”

“You really haven’t been told.” Harry took a long breath. “He can see me. I cannot follow him unnoticed. We’ve developed… a relationship, but there are only so many accidental encounters that I can engineer. If he does not choose to introduce me to someone, I do not meet them.”

“My God.” Arthur had gone very pale. “Go home, Galahad. You will be briefed on this matter in due course.”    

That was all Arthur said, and eventually- reluctantly- Harry did as he was told and went home. He had not been told he couldn’t see Eggsy, which was something, but still Harry told himself that he wouldn’t visit, wouldn’t call, in case Arthur separated them, which Harry was sure he would do. Harry had always known that there were things about this situation that Merlin wasn’t telling him. Judging from Arthur’s reaction, though, they were worse than he had feared. For the first time, Harry wondered if they might move him on for this.

It was late by the time Harry reached home, and it was with decidedly mixed feelings that he found Eggsy sitting on his doorstep. “I wasn’t sure you’d be back,” Eggsy said.

Harry looked him over. “You’re soaking wet.”

“I fell in a fountain.” Eggsy took a breath and stood, looking at his shoes- which were as wet as the rest of him- and said, “It’s been an awful day and I just really wanted to see you.” He met Harry’s gaze at last, eyes stormy. “Is that okay?” Something in his voice and his posture told Harry that he half expected Harry to tell him it wasn’t.

Two seconds looking at Eggsy’s face and everything Harry had told himself about staying away from Eggsy flew out of his head. “Of course it is. Come inside.”

He unlocked his door, held it open, and Eggsy did exactly that.

Harry went directly upstairs and found something for Eggsy to wear- pajama bottoms and an old t-shirt he hadn’t even known he had- and then went back downstairs to send Eggsy in the direction of the shower. “Thanks,” Eggsy murmured, holding the clothes in his hands and looking somehow younger than usual.

“Are your mother and sister back yet?” Harry asked.

Eggsy shook his head.

“Would you- would you stay the night?” Harry wasn’t sure he wanted Eggsy to be alone in this mood- but more than that he had just realized that- whatever Arthur meant by ‘briefed’ or ‘this matter’ or ‘in due course’ Harry was going to spend whatever time remained with Eggsy. He was a fool to have ever tried to do anything different.

Eggsy froze, and then he smiled. It was slower and smaller than most Harry had seen on him, but compared to the look he had worn just a moment ago it was like the sun coming up. He nodded so hard his head practically rattled. “Yes,” he said, as if more was needed. “Yes, Harry.”

Harry squeezed his shoulder. “Good. Are you hungry?”

“I could eat.”

“Then I’ll prepare us something while you get cleaned up.”

Eggsy looked appropriately horrified.

“Trust me, darling, I know my limits. It will be fine.”  

Eggsy’s smile was a little wider, a little stronger that time, and Harry left him to it. In kitchen he cut some slices of bread, found some cured meat and cheese and olives and arrayed them on a plate. It wasn’t the most balanced meal in the world, but Eggsy would be all right for just one evening, and since Harry had only bought the food for his benefit in the first place he supposed it was now or never.

Eggsy showered for a very long time. When he finally came out and padded through the dining room, Harry turned to him with every intention of making a joke about having considered sending out a search party, but the remark died in his throat.

With his hair ruffled and his whole body relaxed, wearing Harry’s pajama bottoms cuffed several times and still dragging on the floor and in Harry’s likewise oversized t-shirt, Eggsy looked lovely. Softer than usual, more vulnerable. But it wasn’t that which most completely caught Harry’s attention. It was Eggsy’s aura. How could Harry have possibly missed Eggsy's aura turning fully purple, let alone blue from there- and that blue lightly tinged with a green that meant there was someone in his life who he could see spending the rest of it with? Whatever Arthur was doing, Harry realized, it was richly deserved. He was failing Eggsy in every possible way.

When Eggsy fell, he clearly fell fast and hard. It was like that sometimes, of course- Romeo and Juliet turned from red all the way through to green, even yellow, in just a few days, which didn’t exactly recommend it. This person meant so much to Eggsy and Harry had no earthly idea who they were or if they would fully appreciate what this wonderful boy was offering, how dear it was.

Eggsy caught him staring and flushed, but it looked easier, warmer than usual- as if he liked the regard. “What?” he asked, all the same.

“I just realized something,” Harry whispered.

“What?” Eggsy asked again.

Harry swallowed and looked down, carrying the plate to the table for something to do with his hands while he searched for a sensible response. “I didn’t ask you how you ended up in the fountain.” He hardly recognized his own voice.

“It was a shit day at work. When it was over, Jamal and Ryan and this girl I work with, we went out, we drank. There was a dare, it was stupid, but I wasn’t in a very good place. By the time you got here I was pretty much sobered up, but it wasn’t a fun night for anyone.”

Harry accepted the answer since Eggsy clearly didn’t want to go into detail. “This girl.” Harry hesitated, wondering if this was the moment. “Do you see a lot of her?”

“I guess.” Eggsy eyes narrowed as he sat down at the table. “Is that a problem?”

“Quite the opposite,” Harry said automatically, even though he was realizing that he did have a problem after all. He didn’t want to do his job, he didn’t want Eggsy to be in love because Harry could hardly believe that- whoever they were- they would deserve him. Not that Harry deserved him, but Harry was good to him, would always be good to him, and Harry wanted to be around Eggsy for as long he could- for as long as Eggsy lived, were that possible.

Eggsy was looking at Harry as though he was making up his mind whether or not to be annoyed with him and Harry knew he needed to explain. And yet he couldn’t bring himself to tell Eggsy what had suddenly become a lie, that he had been wondering if Eggsy fancied someone, and hoped she was the one. So he had to tell Eggsy something else, something that was truer but might still pacify him. He reached out, brushing his fingers over Eggsy’s cheek, and his expression softened a bit, buying Harry more time to think.

“You have a very small circle,” Harry said at last. “It’s your business, obviously, who you let into it. It’s only that you are… _wonderful_.” It was Harry’s own fault if- in combination with his touches- it came out a little too reverent, but it at least thawed Eggsy further. “And I should think that if there were more people in your life who could see that, it would be easier for you to see it in yourself. That’s all I meant.”

Eggsy’s eyes looked worryingly glossy for a moment. He put his hand over Harry’s hand and then turned his head, kissing Harry’s palm. “Okay,” he said. “Okay.”

Harry withdrew his hand to let Eggsy eat, and helped himself to a little as well.

The silence that followed was more comfortable than Harry had feared but more awkward than it could have been. Especially because, as Eggsy finished his meal, he kept giving Harry these odd looks, as if he expected Harry to say or do something more than he had, and Harry had no earthly idea what Eggsy thought he ought to do or say.

He washed the dishes after Eggsy was finished eating. Eggsy helped, and then continued to hang awkwardly at Harry’s side as if he was still waiting for something. “You seem tired,” Harry remarked at last.

“I guess I am.”

“Go on then,” Harry said, resting a hand on his arm. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

Eggsy blinked and then pulled the strangest face, half annoyed and half charmed. He opened his mouth, hesitated briefly, and then sighed. “Yeah, all right,” he finally said. He made his way upstairs without looking back.  

Harry followed not long after. The guest room door was closed and Harry could hear pacing from inside. Harry thought about knocking, about speaking to Eggsy, but he no idea what he would say, so he went to his own room instead. He changed into his pajamas and settled into his bed with the book Eggsy had convinced him to start reading. He didn’t much care for it, but he had every intention of giving it a fair shot. He’d barely gotten into it when he heard a light knock on his door. “Yes?” he asked. The door opened and Eggsy hesitantly poked his head inside. “Come in,” Harry said.

Eggsy did so. He bit his lip and then smiled softly, shyly, and crossed to Harry, perching on the side of the bed right next to him. “You been so nice to me,” he said quietly. He took the book out of the Harry’s hands gently and set it on the bedside table. Then he ghosted his fingertips across Harry’s face, leaning close. “But it’s possible to be too nice.” His lips pressed up against Harry’s, warm and light.

It took Harry a moment to even realize that he was being kissed, and when he did his first thought was, _Do I really not even remember what it feels like to be kissed_? His hand found Eggsy’s shoulder and held it. He didn’t pull Eggsy closer, but- damningly- he didn’t push him away either. Why wasn’t he pushing him away?

Eggsy drew back finally, but he didn’t go far. “C’mon, Harry,” he murmured. “Please.” His hands still cradled Harry’s face, his thumbs brushing over his cheekbones.

“Eggsy,” Harry finally managed to choke out. “You can’t- you can’t think that just because I’m… kind to you that I expect-”

Eggsy rolled his eyes. “Harry, that you don’t expect me to just fall into bed with you is the single most obvious thing in the world at this point. But six months of dating is a long damn time to wait.” He pulled himself onto the bed gracefully, straddling Harry’s hips, and pressed his mouth to Harry’s jaw. “I’m tired of waiting for you to kiss me.” He kissed Harry’s temple. “I’m tired of waiting for you to take me.” He kissed Harry’s lips, lingeringly. “Please.”

Harry was paralyzed- by how warm and perfect Eggsy felt on top of him and against him, by the horrible clarity that was suddenly cast all over everything that had confused him about Eggsy’s behavior when he looked at it over again thinking that Eggsy thought Harry wanted him. That when he had said, _I’d like to see more of you_ and Eggsy had agreed, he had thought that it meant they were dating. Harry sucked in a breath and _made_ himself move, tightening his grip on Eggsy’s shoulder and pushing him back. “Don’t-”    

When he had first kissed Harry, Eggsy had looked shy, certainly, but not genuinely unsure of his welcome. Anxiety was finally creeping in behind his eyes. “You keep saying you don’t care about what I used to do. But unless I done something that made you not want me no more, I don’t get why you keep walking away.”

“You’ve misunderstood,” Harry said, and regretted it immediately. The misunderstanding was Harry’s fault, not Eggsy’s. How many times had he thought they could have been mistaken for lovers? By the girl at the coffee shop, by strangers the time Eggsy had shared that cupcake with him, by Charlie Hesketh? Hadn’t he known how odd it looked, a man of his age paying so much attention to someone like Eggsy? Buying him things? Taking to him to a wedding, for fuck’s sake?

 _It’s possible to be too nice._ Christ.

“I’m so terribly sorry, Eggsy. I was aware, I suppose, of how it looked, but I swear on everything holy that I never thought for one second that you might think I was interested in anything other than your friendship.”

Throughout this speech Eggsy had been drawing away, physically and emotionally. By the end of it he was seated on the side of the bed, face eerily blank.

“And I never was,” Harry finished.

That got a reaction. Eggsy’s face contorted, crumbled. Harry might not have been able to remember much of his life as a man, but he knew that he had never made anyone look quite that unhappy since that time, and he doubted he could possibly have done so during it. Eggsy clapped a hand over his mouth and held it there for a beat, then two, as a soft whining sound came out of his mouth and was muffled. When he finally lowered his hand his expression was almost clear again. “Of course not,” he said softly, as if uttering a realization aloud as it came to him. His face contorted again. “Of _course_ not.” He sounded like he was angry at himself rather than at Harry, which was so horribly wrong.

It was automatic, after everything. Harry reached for him. Eggsy flinched away- of course he did, what did Harry expect?- and stood quickly, fairly running out of the room. Harry wasn’t genuinely worried yet, but that was probably because he wasn’t thinking very clearly. It was a few moments later, when he heard a step on the stair and the outer door open and shut, that he realized how very wrong things had gone so quickly- and how much worse they might still get.

When Harry could move again at last, he pulled on a robe and made his way to the spare room. Eggsy’s wet clothes and wallet had migrated there from the bathroom, and though he had taken his phone, perhaps to call a friend, everything else was there still. Harry wasn’t sure how to feel about the fact that Eggsy had been sufficiently distraught to leave so many of his things behind.

On the one hand, Harry was terribly worried for him out there in borrowed, ill-fitting clothes. He was worried enough, in fact, to consider calling Eggsy and telling him anything he might want to hear just to get him back into the house.

On the other, it meant that Eggsy would have to come back eventually, and they would be able to talk.

But what- Harry thought miserably- did they really have to talk about? What had happened was already very clear. They both fundamentally misunderstood the relationship they had; neither of them would ever see the future they had imagined or retrieve what they had believed the two of them had shared in the past.

Harry leaned against the wall beside the bed, feeling like such a fool he could hardly believe it. None of this was Eggsy’s fault. Of course he had misunderstood Harry’s interest- how could he not? The question Harry couldn’t answer was how _he_ had misunderstood _Eggsy’s._ For a while, Harry had managed- even with Eggsy pressed up against him, kissing him- to believe that Eggsy still saw him as a friend, even a father figure. He had managed to think that Eggsy was merely giving Harry what he thought Harry wanted. But the broken look on his face before he ran… That was not the look of someone who was offering sex to a person they believed expected it- and it showed that Harry was more hung up on Eggsy’s past than he had believed that he had thought so, even for a moment. That was the look of someone who had just realized that the person they were in love with was not in love with them.

Their entire relationship replayed behind Harry’s eyes in brilliant Technicolor, and what an idiot he had been. If he had not been himself, but an outside observer, he would never have thought for a second that the person he had spent so long trying to identify- the person Eggsy wanted- had been anyone other than Harry himself.

When Eggsy’s aura first turned red- open, interested, ready- it had been Harry he looked at first, Harry he said _hi_ to in that faintly awed tone, as if he had come out of a fog and seen him for the first time.

When Eggsy’s aura began to turn purple- the start of strong affection for a person in particular- it had been when Harry accepted that Eggsy put Daisy first without question, when he was so good with her himself.

When Eggsy’s aura turned blue- affection turning into something stronger, deeper- it must have been at some point after the wedding, after all of Harry’s assurances that all he cared about was Eggsy’s happiness.

When Eggsy’s aura began to turn green- wanting a relationship to last, believing it really could- it had been when Harry let him in despite his mood, asked him to stay and he must have thought-

When Eggsy had smiled like that he must have thought-

Harry put his head in his hands, eyes almost prickling, and slumped against the wall before he slid down it and hit the floor.

_Stay._

_You really didn’t have to sleep on the couch._

_All I’m saying is that I got the house to myself. You could- you could stay._

Six months… had it really been that long? Harry supposed it must have. And six months of dating was a long time to wait for a kiss- because Harry could remember, now- especially after Harry had made a more… sweeping declaration- all the times Eggsy had expected, and _wanted_ , Harry to kiss him. Six months was a long time to wait for more.

Harry’s lips were still tingling from Eggsy’s kiss. He could still taste him there. Harry rose, gazing down at the bed. Before he went to Harry, Eggsy had- at some point- lain there long enough to leave a very faint depression. Harry thought of the way that Eggsy had looked when he came to him, all ruffled hair and soft smiles, never really doubting that Harry wanted him, only wondering why he was taking so _long_ about it.    

 _Of course not_ , Eggsy had said when Harry explained that no, he had never seen him that way. _Of_ course _not_. Like he had been a fool all this while to think otherwise.

Harry’s legs seemed to give out underneath him, so he lay down, face pressed into the pillow. It hardly smelled like Eggsy at all, just the shampoo Harry kept in the spare bathroom. But he strained and he managed to find traces. How dearly he had loved Eggsy’s scent. How he had loved holding Eggsy in his arms. How he had loved to be the one to remind Eggsy how it felt to be touched gently.

And how he had loved seeing Eggsy’s beautiful heart unfolding for him.    

His hands curled into fists. How Eggsy felt about him wasn’t the only thing that would have been as clear as day to Harry under different circumstances.

Under different circumstances- if Harry hadn’t been what he was- Eggsy would perhaps not have been wrong about him. Harry didn’t know how they would have met- how they _could_ have met- but how could he have failed to want him? And even if he had intended only friendship, how long would it really have taken for him to kiss Eggsy’s lips rather than just his forehead or his hand- once he knew that that was what Eggsy had wanted? And if Eggsy had invited it, how long would it have been before he pressed that beautiful body into this bed and done _everything_ , everything Eggsy would permit? Surely not six months. Surely not as long as that. Not if he had _known_.

Harry wasn’t even sure that Eggsy was wrong about him now. Oh, he had never for a second considered that there was more than friendship between them- but now that he did he would be lying if he claimed not to want it.

He hadn’t known, until Eggsy, how much he ached to touch and be touched. Just the same, he’d more or less forgotten about sex, hadn’t put desire and himself in the same thought, until Eggsy had reminded him. After all, the necessary equipment was still there, and judging by how every part of Harry pulled taut as bowstring at the thought of having Eggsy touch him as a lover- and touching him in return- it was all in working order. That warm, lovely body had been on top of his, those soft lush lips pressed to his face, and he wanted them back. More than that, he just _wanted_ , anything- everything- Eggsy might be willing to give.          

As he realized all this, Harry’s first thought was that he should keep it to himself, allow the wall that had sprung up between them to stand. He would be taken away from Eggsy, either assigned another charge or banished altogether- and surely, if Eggsy had to get over Harry- and he _had_ to- wouldn’t it be easier to do that not knowing that Harry had felt the same after all?

Harry dismissed the thought almost as soon as he had considered it. He remembered again how Eggsy sounded saying _of course not_ like that. No. No matter how much it could hurt both of them in the long run, he couldn’t bear for Eggsy to doubt even for a moment that he deserved everything Harry could give him and more.

Harry sat bolt upright on the bed.

It was so forbidden it didn’t even bear mentioning. It was so impossible that Harry had never considered the option. But he had fallen in love with Eggsy- he just hadn’t realized it until now.    

He went back to his own bedroom, retrieved his mobile, and returned to the spare room, lying back on the cooling sheet as his call went to voicemail.

“Eggsy,” he said, looking at the ceiling above him. “I’m so sorry. You didn’t get it wrong, I did. Please come back. Please.”

*   *   *

Time slipped away from Harry after he left the message. He didn’t know how long he spent lying there, but he didn’t think it was too long before he heard a sound at the door. Eggsy had taken a key too, which made Harry smile. The smile faded quickly as he heard steps up the stairs that sounded utterly exhausted. He sat up again but put his face in his hands. He didn’t want to look at Eggsy; he was terrified to see that broken look still on his face, to see his aura the way it had been when Harry met him.

He listened to Eggsy come to a stop, leaning in the doorway. “Hey,” he said, sounding as tired as his footsteps did.

“That was quick,” Harry remarked, to fill the silence that followed. “I was afraid-”

“I didn’t get far. I listened to your message. And it occurred to me that you might get so worried about me out there that you’d say anything to get me to come back.”

Harry finally looked at Eggsy. He didn’t let himself take in Eggsy’s aura yet, just the rest of him. He was in profile, leaning against the doorway and looking at the ground. He was all hard lines and rough edges, the way he had been when they met. It hurt to see him like that. “I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t considered it,” Harry admitted.

Eggsy hissed and turned as if he was leaving, back to Harry.

He stood and crossed to Eggsy quickly. “But what I said was true.” He settled against Eggsy’s back, close enough to feel his heat but not actually touch him, and braced his hands in the doorway. “It’s so wrong I didn’t even let myself think it. But I do…” Harry let out a long breath. “I _do_.”

Eggsy slumped back against Harry’s chest, still so warm and perfect. “It’s _not_ wrong,” he said fiercely, turning to press his face into the crook of Harry’s neck. “Being with you has been one of the most right things in my whole life.”

Harry couldn’t stop the soft whining noise he made. He loosened his grip on the doorframe, letting one hand fall. He ran the backs of his knuckles across Eggsy’s neck and then touched his face. Eggsy rubbed his cheek against Harry’s hand then, like he was as hungry for Harry’s touch as ever.

Eggsy leaned his head back to look at Harry, and Harry’s palm settled against his throat, cradling it. “When I was out there, I was thinking. I realized that you was trying to set me up with people all this time. That girl in the café. The ponce at the party.”

“Hugo.”

“Hugo.” Harry stretched out his fingers and he could feel Eggsy’s wry smile beneath them. “Asking me if I saw a lot of that girl I work with.”

“Yes,” Harry admitted, to all of it.

“And here’s me,” Eggsy continued, kissing Harry’s fingertips with every word. “Thinking you was my boyfriend, trying to figure out if you was a jealous bastard or the least jealous person on the planet.” He shook his head and Harry’s hand slid to his cheek. “How would you feel, having people hit on you when the only person you actually want is right there acting like there ain't nothing odd about it? I guess I thought we was taking things so slow because you wanted to give me all the chances in the world to back out. Because you thought I would back out.”

Eggsy turned against him and Harry’s fingers knitted themselves into Eggsy’s hair.

“I ain’t wrong about that either, am I?” Eggsy asked softly. “You still think that I oughta be with one of them.”

Harry let his other hand fall from the doorframe to cradle Eggsy’s beloved face. “Yes,” he told him. “And no. I don’t know. I find it difficult to believe anyone could deserve you. That doesn’t mean that we could ever-” Harry couldn’t finish. “You should be with someone-”

“What if I don’t want whatever kind of person you decided I should be with? I want you. I saw _you_ that day when I first looked up and thought it might be okay to want something for myself and I have never once regretted it, not even tonight. You’re the one who made reservations at one of the nicest restaurants in the city and then cancelled and watched Disney movies with me and Daisy all night instead because the babysitter fell through. You’re the one who always helped me cook even though you’re a disaster in the kitchen. You’re the one who went out for medicine at 2 am because Daisy had a fever and I was terrified. Who else was I gonna fall in love with? You think anybody else was gonna do all that for me? You think anybody else was gonna love me as well as you do? Because you do love me, Harry. I may’ve been able to believe that I was wrong about how you loved me, but I ain’t ever gonna believe that I’m wrong about that.”

“Of course I love you,” Harry whispered. Eggsy had to get on his tiptoes to rub his nose against Harry’s, his mouth suddenly unbearably close. Harry’s thumb dragged over his chin, Eggsy’s lips parting beautifully. “Of course I do.”

“Please, Harry.” Eggsy got impossibly closer, his lips fluttering against Harry’s skin every time he spoke. “Please.”    

Harry’s fingertips played along Eggsy’s scalp. “Eggsy,” he whispered. “I want- I want to be with you, I do, but… There are things you don’t know.” It wasn’t as though anyone had ever told Harry he couldn’t tell Eggsy the truth. Perhaps the assumption had been that it went without saying, but Harry couldn’t keep this from him, not if they were about to… “There are things you have to-”

“Tell me.”

“I’m not… strictly… human.”

Eggsy was silent for a long moment, then he turned his head, his lips grazing along Harry’s jaw. Just when Harry thought Eggsy might be done surprising him, he said, “Kinda knew that.”

Harry stared at him. “How?”

“I never got why I wasn’t beating people off with a stick to keep you to myself.” Harry laughed and Eggsy lightly punched his chest. “I mean it, you’re fucking fit. And I didn’t think men like you really existed, so that was another thing. Once or twice I could excuse, but it was all the fucking time, people seemed to just look right through you. At first I thought that maybe there was something… wrong with you, or that it was rose colored glasses or some shit, and that was why you was hanging around me ‘cos for some reason I couldn’t see it, but- it happened too much, yeah? And you… well… sometimes when you’d been alone for a while, or sleeping, you’d go a little…transparent. And…” Eggsy lifted a hand, tracing the line of Harry’s face. “I think you been getting younger since I met you. I dunno what that’s about. Do you believe me?”

“Under the circumstances, I’m going to take your word for it.” Most mortals, even if they could see Harry, would have either not noticed those things or subconsciously dismissed them. Just another thing that made Eggsy special, then. That he had not only seen, but also accepted.   

“So what are you?” Eggsy tongue flicked over his lips. “Are you like a vampire or something?” It was difficult to tell if he was joking or not.  

“I’m… closer to an angel. Technically.”

“You my guardian angel?” That was definitely a joke. And the way Eggsy’s eyes looked up close when they sparkled like that… How had Harry never realized how much he felt for this boy?

“I’ve often wished I was. Wished I could do more for you than is technically in my purview. Although I did engineer a lot of the changes in your life, usually in a roundabout way. Perhaps you suspected that as well.” Judging by the look in Eggsy’s eyes, he had. Probably, once he had realized Harry that was more than human it had been difficult to believe everything else could be coincidental. “It seemed necessary, to do my job. I’m... a cupid.”

“That’s a real thing?”

Harry moved, slumping against the doorframe. Eggsy went with him, Harry’s thumbs slipping over his cheekbones. “When I tried to set you up with people before, I was doing my job. I actually got your parents together. It’s probably strange for you to know that. My kind live in the world, for the most part, though our headquarters is technically beyond it. People… can see us, because sometimes our jobs demand it. Like the story I told you about bumping into Roxy that day. I did it so she’d meet Amelia because I knew Roxy would be good for her. Amelia was my charge at that time. The next one was- or rather _is_ \- you. But while people can see us, they don’t notice us, and when they’re forced to acknowledge us, the brain tries to explain away how difficult it is to pay any attention to us by making us seem boring. It’s why when I introduced you to my ‘friends’ from work you found them so dull. And it’s why your friends and even your mother never took an interest in me. Children are an exception. In theory, we can learn about our charges and go almost completely unnoticed that way. But _you_ could see me. I still have no idea why.”  

Eggsy eyes were wide, but he didn’t draw away.

Harry pressed on. “I need you to know that I had no idea that _this_ was even possible. That I haven’t done anything to manipulate your life in quite some time. And that I never did anything to make you fall in love with me. That’s not how it works. I can see interest and compatibility between other people, and steer them toward or away from each other, maybe strengthen or weaken that interest a bit- but I can’t make feelings that aren’t there, and I genuinely had no idea that you had feelings for me- or vice versa- until tonight. This was _not_ the plan.”

“Yes, you did,” Eggsy said quietly.

Harry stared into the beautiful face held between his hands. “What?”

Eggsy pressed closer, resting his cheek against Harry’s jaw. “I’m not saying that I don’t believe you. I never thought for a second that you would have forced me into this, whether you had the power to or not- not that it isn’t a comfort to know that you can’t do that. I just mean that you _did_ make me fall in love with you.”

“I didn’t mean to.”

Eggsy smiled, and it lit up his whole face. “That’s why you’re the one, innit?”

“Don’t say that,” Harry whispered.

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t know if I can _stay_. None of this is supposed to happen. You weren’t supposed to be able to see me. I wasn’t supposed to fall for you and you certainly weren’t supposed to fall for me. I don’t know if they’ll let me-”

“I don’t care.”

Harry swallowed. “You don’t?”

Eggsy’s face contorted, expression going oddly tender. “I mean- I do _care_. I don’t know what I’m gonna do if I can’t keep you. But right now, tonight, I don’t even give a fuck what’s gonna happen in the morning as long as you _touch_ me.”

“Eggsy,” he whispered, and stopped. He had been right before, even if he had been wrong about what he felt for Eggsy. And Eggsy was right now. Whatever time they had left, even if it wasn’t much, they should spend it together. “Stay the night.” This time it was loaded with everything that it hadn’t been before.

If Eggsy’s smile turned a little bittersweet, it was still beautiful. “Yes, Harry.”

Harry kissed that smile, slow and a little bit messy, Eggsy whining sweetly beneath him. Harry would have been happy to just kiss him like that for hours- taste him properly, learn the curves of his lips and the strong line of his teeth- but Eggsy couldn’t have been comfortable craning up like that, so Harry wasn’t surprised when Eggsy took control, grabbing Harry by the collar of his robe and tugging him towards the bed.  

Harry stopped him, catching those hands as they wandered downward and undid the belt of his robe. “Harry,” Eggsy said, pressing up against Harry’s chest again as Harry’s robe fell open. “If you say that you want to take this slowly after everything, I ain’t gonna be responsible for my actions.”

Harry laughed and pressed a reverent kiss to Eggsy’s temple. “No,” he said. “I only meant to say that I’d rather have you in my bed.”

“That so?” Eggsy asked. He was keeping a straight face but his eyes were dancing.

“It is.”

Eggsy’s lips twitched. “Okay,” he said. Harry released his hands, but neither of them made a move for the door. Despite his words, Eggsy seemed content to take his time. His fingers trailed along the hem of Harry’s shirt. “What was you doing in here anyway?”

“I came in to check if you’d taken everything with you, if you’d have to come back.”

Eggsy’s fingers slipped underneath the shirt. “I was always gonna come back.”

Harry sighed, oddly relieved to hear it even though the worst was already over, and then his breath hitched as one of Eggsy’s hands trailed over his stomach. “I stayed because I could smell you on the pillow.”    

“You fucking freak,” Eggsy said, voice all helpless affection, eyes wide. “I can _not_ believe you ever thought that we weren’t-”

Harry cut him off with hard kiss, fingers tight on his chin. “Yes.”

Eggsy wasn’t done. The moment Harry released him he continued. “The way you would hold me,” he said, settling closer. “And kissing my _hand_.” His hand slid over bare skin up Harry’s torso, a nail grazing Harry’s nipple and making him hiss. “Calling me _darling_.”

Harry stroked up Eggsy’s jaw and pressed his fingers into Eggsy’s hair, drawing him to his chest. Eggsy’s rested his head there without complaint as Harry reached down and found Eggsy’s free hand, lifting it to his lips. “Darling,” he said, kissing Eggsy’s knuckles. He let his tongue slip between them, and heard Eggsy whimper softly. He looked and saw that Eggsy’s eyes had gone positively black.

“Take me to bed,” Eggsy grated out.

“Yes,” Harry replied, and did.

Stumbling down the hall between the spare bedroom and Harry’s, Eggsy pushed Harry’s robe over his shoulders between long, wet kisses, and it fell to the floor forgotten. Pressing Eggsy against the wall by the doorway to his bedroom, Harry slid his hands under Eggsy’s t-shirt and peeled it over his head, moaning at the way it felt to hold Eggsy in his arms when his skin was bare, so warm and soft and smooth. Backing up until his knees hit the bed, Eggsy unbuttoned the top of Harry’s pajamas, slow, and reached underneath again, palms dragging over Harry’s chest.

Harry pushed Eggsy over, pressing him into the mattress, and his breath caught when they were skin to skin at last.

“Am I too heavy?” he asked against Eggsy’s lips, smoothing a hand over his forehead and into his hair.

“Fuck,” Eggsy breathed. “No. You’re perfect.”

“Darling,” Harry said again before he crushed their mouths together. He repositioned himself until his thigh slotted between Eggsy’s knees and pressed up until he could feel how hard Eggsy was, and he was so very hard, whining into Harry’s mouth and rutting against him. “My darling.” He caressed Eggsy’s hair with one hand and touched his chest with the other. His body was so warm, so pliant. He arched, unfailingly, into Harry’s touch, giving himself over. Harry had always loved having his hands on Eggsy too much, hadn’t he? And Eggsy had always leaned into him too eagerly, hadn’t he? This had never been about friendship alone; when Harry’s hand slipped under Eggsy’s waistband it felt too good for this to be anything but right.

Eggsy was naked under his pajama bottoms, and Harry’s fingers slipped down the hard length of him. “Harry,” Eggsy choked out. Whatever he might have said next turned into a groan as Harry gripped a bit more firmly, jerking him under his clothes.

When Eggsy was sprawled underneath him and keening, Harry slowed down, passing his thumb over the leaking head of his cock once more before withdrawing. “Up,” he said, and Eggsy lifted his hips, letting Harry pull his trousers down and toss them away. Harry pressed a kiss to Eggsy’s kneecap, then settled between his spread legs, taking in the mouthwatering sight of his completely naked body.

Though he was still on the thin side, Eggsy had put on more weight than he’d had when Harry met him. He was all angular lines, but Harry couldn’t see his ribs, which he would have worried about had he ever let himself think it might come to this. His skin was pale and lovely, a trail of light hair leading down the flat plane of his stomach to the thicker patch beneath his hips, his cock- not too long but thick and gleaming where Harry’s touches had spread his pre-come around- standing stiff between muscular thighs.

Eggsy made a soft sound and Harry flicked his eyes up to Eggsy’s face, taking in the flush high on his cheeks. “What is it?” he asked. Eggsy was beautiful when he blushed, but Harry didn’t want him embarrassed.

“Nothing,” Eggsy said, half shaking his head. “Just feel… different. When you look at me like that.”

“Different,” Harry repeated. He kissed Eggsy higher on his leg. “Good?”

Eggsy reached out, touching Harry’s face, his hair. “You always make me feel good.” His fingers trailed over Harry’s lips. “And I’m gonna be so good to you.” His hand went down Harry’s shoulder, tugging him up to his mouth.

Harry went, saying, “I believe you,” between kisses.

Eggsy grinned against his lips. His hand slid down Harry’s back and then further, pushing his pajama bottoms down as far as his position would allow and squeezing his arse. Biting back another groan, Harry moved to help, stripping them off awkwardly. He laughed breathlessly and barely had time to toss them aside next to Eggsy’s before Eggsy was kissing him again, this time pressing Harry’s back into the bed-clothes, straddling him as he had earlier that night. Harry froze, eyes snapping shut as he remembered and thought of how very differently things might have gone if Eggsy hadn’t come back. How very close he had come to never having this. He felt Eggsy go still too. “Is this okay?”

“Yes,” Harry managed. He hadn’t let himself think it, but having Eggsy on top of him aroused him then and it aroused him now. He opened his eyes, letting Eggsy see just how much. “It’s perfect.” He put his arms around Eggsy’s waist to keep him close and remembered what Eggsy had said to him. “You’re perfect.”

And he really was, draped warm and naked over Harry, kissing him over and over again. He carded his fingers through Harry’s hair, moving expertly down to his jaw, kissing him there. Several times Eggsy repositioned himself until he was lying over Harry, Harry’s cock trapped between them. The drag of Eggsy’s stomach over his cock every time Eggsy rocked up to kiss him felt almost unbelievably perfect. He groaned, his head rolling back.

When Eggsy found a rhythm that drove Harry out of his mind, he gripped Eggsy’s hips almost too hard, unable to decide whether to try to stop him or keep him going. “Eggsy,” he choked out, still not sure.

Eggsy tugged on his hair, lifting Harry’s head to kiss him, and Harry kissed him back, all tongue and teeth and desperation, and he came, wanting to hold back but not at all able to.      

Harry didn’t know how long it lasted. He’d forgotten what this felt like, how it seemed to crash over him like a wave- and this particular wave just kept coming. He only remembered snatches- Eggsy gasping against his lips, the smooth slide of their bodies against each other getting slicker as Harry’s come splashed between them, the heat of Eggsy’s skin under his hands and the strength of his muscles. Harry had also forgotten how it felt when it was over. Some people turned lazy and lethargic but Harry didn’t; he felt only sharper and more focused.

He tightened his grip on Eggsy and flipped them over so he was on top. The surprised noise that Eggsy gave turned quickly into a groan as Harry pressed kisses down the line of his throat and then his chest. He loved the taste of Eggsy’s skin and the trim planes of his body, but he didn’t spend too much time on them. He knew he had come sooner than Eggsy had expected, but in the heat in his eyes and the twitching of his hips Harry could see that Eggsy was close too. Maybe Harry’s reaction had driven him there; he didn’t know, all he knew was that he didn’t intend to make Eggsy wait for much longer.

Harry moved down further, putting his hands on Eggsy’s thighs and then wrapping one around the base of Eggsy’s cock. He stroked carefully at first, then a little firmer as Eggsy whimpered and his hips stuttered. Moisture beaded at the head of Eggsy’s cock and Harry bent, licking it up, tasting him. “Harry,” Eggsy whispered.

Taking a breath, Harry wrapped his lips around him and sucked, feeling the muscles in Eggsy’s thigh tighten under his hand, hearing him moan. It took Harry a few moments to remember how to do this, how to take him deeper, and even so he didn't have a great deal of finesse at his disposal. It was wet and sloppy and Eggsy didn’t appear to care. Harry looked up at Eggsy, and the way Eggsy was looking back at him would have taken his breath away if that hadn’t been a bit of a problem for him at the moment anyway. Eggsy reached down, touching Harry’s face and his lips where they stretched around his cock, and Harry didn’t think anyone had ever looked at him with that much awe in his life.

“Harry,” Eggsy said again. “I’m-”

Harry moved his tongue along the underside of Eggsy's cock and sucked again. Eggsy groaned, head rolling back, hips working up, and came. Harry choked a little and then swallowed, taking it all in.

It was after that that Harry needed a moment to catch his breath and collect himself, and Eggsy appeared to need the same, collapsing back onto the sheets, hand still cradling Harry’s face oh-so-gently.

Slowly, Harry roused himself. He kissed Eggsy’s inner thigh and moved to get something to clean Eggsy up with, but Eggsy- still a little boneless and sated- clung to him. “Stay,” he whispered, fingers digging into Harry’s bicep and pulling him closer.  

“I’m just going to get-”

“ _Stay_.”

Pressing his lips into the sharp curve of Eggsy’s shoulder, Harry nodded. “For a little while,” he agreed.

He kissed up the side of Eggsy’s face and buried his nose in Eggsy’s surprisingly soft hair. Eggsy still smelled like Harry’s shampoo, but he smelled like himself too and Harry liked the mix. Harry held Eggsy close and slowly relaxed against him. He stilled when his fingers dragged through come across Eggsy’s stomach. In an impulse Harry chose not to examine too closely, he traced the sigil for _forever_ and- for the first time since he was mortal, if that- prayed that he would get it somehow.  

Eventually he flicked his gaze up to Eggsy. His charge looked contented, certainly, but his brows had drawn together and he was worrying at his bottom lip. “Was that… weird?” Harry asked him.

“A little,” Eggsy said. “But I don’t mind.”

His cheeks carried the faintest touch of pink and Harry kissed them. “Then what?” he asked.

Eggsy hesitated. “I ain’t complaining,” he said slowly. His flush deepened. “I like that I- uh-” he coughed- “affect you that way. But… you know… I always thought that…” Eggsy shut his eyes tightly. “You know what they say about older men and stamina.”

“Ah.” Harry coughed himself. He pressed light kisses to Eggsy’s eyelids. “I’ll do better next time,” he said, wishing he knew that there would _be_ a next time. Wishing he’d done better this time in case there wouldn’t be, so he could have made love to Eggsy all night. From the slightly sad look in Eggsy’s eyes, he had just realized something similar. “It’s just been such a very long time since I was… with anyone.”

Eggsy opened his eyes, the look in them uncertain and a little sad. “Like… years?”

“Yes, Eggsy.”

Eggsy hesitated, clearly remembering that Harry wouldn’t be like anyone he’d ever known before. “A lot of years?”

“Decades, actually.”

Eggsy blinked comically wide eyes.

“Since the automobile was known as the horseless carriage, at least.”

“Fucking hell, Harry!” Eggsy reached up and touched Harry’s jaw with trembling fingers and awe in his eyes. “Sorry,” he said at last, thumb sliding over Harry’s lower lip.

Harry’s hands went to his shoulders, gripping him tightly. “Whatever for?”

“I don’t know, I just coulda…” Eggsy ducked his head until Harry lifted his hands, framing his face and making Eggsy meet his eyes. “That’s a long fucking dry spell, yeah, and I coulda-”

“No,” Harry said, shaking his head. “Whatever you’re thinking, no. There is nothing you could have done that would have made being with you any more perfect.” His fingers dug into the smooth skin at the back of Eggsy’s neck and he pulled him into a hard kiss. Eggsy’s fingers were like bars between their lips until, with a soft whine, Eggsy pushed them into Harry’s hair and kissed him back. Harry left his face fitted to Eggsy’s when he spoke again. “I love you.” He pressed his mouth to Eggsy’s over and over. “My god, how I love you.”

He couldn’t believe that he hadn’t known that when he arrived back here tonight. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t known all this while, how completely he belonged to Eggsy. How completely they belonged to each other.

The thought- the realization, more like- shook Harry to the core. His eyes had drifted closed but he tore them open. They were too close for him to look properly at Eggsy’s face- but Eggsy’s aura was another question, and Harry forced himself to take it in for the first time since dinner.

It was so beautiful. Harry held Eggsy close, lacing his fingers together in Eggsy’s hair and cradling his skull, and pressed kisses all over the blissed-out look on his face, keeping his own eyes stubbornly open. Eggsy’s aura was such a lovely light turquoise-blue, running together with a pure sea-glass green. Harry discovered that he was shaking and pressed a final kiss to Eggsy’s lips before he said, “Let me clean you up.”

Eggsy only hummed softly, but he let Harry slip away from him this time.

Harry wet a cloth in the bathroom, lost in thought. Eggsy’s aura was not yet a true green, he told himself- and he thanked whatever power higher than he that ruled these things for it, because it meant that Eggsy would eventually recover when Harry was ripped from him- because he would have to be. Harry wouldn’t go peaceably, not after this. They would have to drag him away. Eggsy’s aura might not be fully green yet, but Harry was sure that if he had one _his_ would be.

Before he went back into the bedroom, Harry forced himself to look at his reflection in the mirror. He felt sure that he had been remade somehow in the last few hours, and he was afraid to see it- but he had to check if Eggsy was right.

He was.

Though he had carried certain vanities on from his former life- Harry liked to look good even when he knew that no one was going to appreciate it- he hadn’t really taken in his own face in a very long time. The last time he’d checked, though, he’d looked be to be at least fifty. Now he looked barely over forty. Some of the wrinkles around his eyes and most of the grey at his temples had faded. “My god,” Harry said, examining his neck.

“See?” Eggsy called sleepily from the other room.  

He made his way back to the bed and tenderly wiped Eggsy down. Eggsy smiled up at him, the adoration in his eyes unlike anything Harry had ever seen directed at him before.

“I’m tired,” Eggsy said softly.

“Then sleep,” Harry murmured, kissing that smooth forehead as he had back when he hadn’t known what the tight heat gathering in his chest meant.

“Gonna be here when I wake up?” Eggsy murmured.

Harry kissed the side of his face. “I’m going to try, my darling.” He lay down beside Eggsy and stroked his hair until he slept.

Once Eggsy had dozed off, Harry considered getting up, perhaps making himself some tea. He considered, too, simply lying there and watching Eggsy sleep, memorizing his beautiful face for whatever was to come. He hadn’t yet made up his mind which when he noticed a slight flutter of movement on the balcony. He sat up, thinking to go to the window, but he was suddenly frozen in place. He felt a flush of something he couldn’t identify, a shock starting in the top of his head and barreling straight down to his toes.

When Harry could move again he rolled out of bed quickly- but gently enough not wake Eggsy- and made his way to the window on unsteady legs. There was no one there, though he thought that maybe he caught a glimpse of dark hair and the familiar half pleased, half put-upon twist of a lip. It was hard to remember, because suddenly Harry felt tired.

He was actually, genuinely exhausted- so much so, in fact, that he hardly thought about how odd it was. He returned to bed, wrapped himself around Eggsy, and slept.    

*   *   *

When Harry woke up, he woke up because of a knock on the door downstairs. All he could think was, _not yet_. He didn’t know who it was or why they had come, but only Harry’s coworkers ever came to his house, not that they knocked for any reason but politeness, so this- whatever it was- was what Arthur had been talking about. He seriously considered pretending not to be at home, but he knew it wouldn’t do much good in the long run. He disentangled himself from Eggsy carefully, pressed a final kiss to his forehead, and went downstairs to meet his fate.

His fate turned out to be Lancelot already inside and lounging in an armchair in Harry’s sitting room with his feet up and a glass of scotch in his hand. When Harry glowered at him, he smiled back innocently. “You look good, Galahad,” he said.

“Thank you,” Harry replied. The words were automatic, but he was still annoyed, so they came out sourer than Harry had intended.  

“Have a seat.”

“Thank you,” Harry repeated, taking a seat in his own house and entirely meaning the sarcasm that time.

“So.” Lancelot took a sip of his drink. “You’re wondering what’s going to happen to you.”

“I’m wondering how you plan to keep me away from him.”

“If you mean me, I don’t plan anything. As for the organization at large, they don’t. We’re in the business of a great many things, but keeping two people who love each other apart is not, in fact, among them.”

“But I’m not supposed to love him.”

“Actually, Galahad, you are. If you could only see your aura right now, you’d know it.”

“We don’t have auras.”    

Lancelot rolled his eyes. “Merlin’s policy to tell us as little as possible so we don’t upset the natural order of things is understandable, but it really causes trouble now and then. You do, I do, we all do.”

“But I can’t see yours.”

“If you really concentrated, you would.”

Harry concentrated accordingly, and after a while, he saw it. Yellow, so intense it was almost white, surrounding him like a halo. He mentioned as much.

Lancelot smiled. “You’ve never seen it before because you’ve never looked. Percy saw yours, but because he still believes in going through the proper channels his report didn’t reach anyone until after your run-in with Arthur.”

“What-” Harry swallowed- “what does it look like?”

“It’s yellow. Just like mine. Just like your boy up there’s will be in not too long, though by then you won’t be able to see it.”

Harry’s mouth was dry. He should have known last night that he wouldn’t be green after all, but yellow. There would be no one else for him after Eggsy, not ever. But if Lancelot meant what he said about not separating them, why wouldn’t he be able to see it when Eggsy came to feel the same? “Why-”

“Do you know what happens, Galahad?” Lancelot asked. “After we move on?”

“An afterlife, I suppose,” Harry said. He tried to act more indifferent to the prospect than he actually felt as Lancelot eyed him curiously. “I don’t really think too much about it.”

“You do!” Lancelot practically crowed. “You think about hell.”

Harry considered that. He remembered so little of his former life, but rosary beads and stern lectures about sin and the general sense that he had not always been a good man featured prominently. “Yes,” he admitted. “I do.”

“Well, here’s something that you _should_ think about: more often than not, souls go back into circulation.”

“Reincarnation?”

“Yes and no. It’s complicated.” Lancelot rolled his eyes as if he felt personally victimized by the fact that he had to explain this. “The point is that some souls- not all, not even most- are tied to another. Destined, as it were. For one very particular person. But occasionally it goes wrong. Souls get born into bodies too early or too late, somebody dies before their time… it all depends. The point is, you end up anchored to the world in a way that people who finished everything they were meant to do aren’t. That’s what people like us are, Galahad. We stay because some important part of our lives has remained unfinished. Some people- like Percy and me- meet as cupids or in whatever job they end up being given. Some people- like you- meet the person they’re supposed to be with when they’re assigned them as charges. I’m sure you can imagine how dangerous it could be if we knew the truth, which is assumedly why Merlin doesn’t tell us these things.”

“And that’s why Eggsy could see me,” Harry said as he realized. "Because we're... connected." It explained, too, why Eggsy noticed things about him that no one else probably could have.

Lancelot nodded. “That, at least, was news to Percy and me when Merlin explained it. We’re only allowed to know because we’re… out of the running, as it were. I trust you agree that you would have behaved differently if you knew it was possible. He felt it would be better for both of you if it happened… organically.”

“I suppose he wasn’t wrong about that,” Harry admitted, annoyed anyway.

Lancelot reached out and patted his knee.

Harry hesitated. “I can really… be with Eggsy?”

“Oh yes,” Lancelot replied. “Merlin finished updating both your files this morning, though Arthur officially kicked you out last night. You, sir, are matched.”

“ _Merlin_ updated our files?”

“He passes out assignments,” Lancelot said. “But it’s also his job to watch over _our_ matches. You can think of him as your cupid, if you like.”

Harry preferred not to, frankly. He was still trying to wrap his head around the thought that this… just happened sometimes. “But what does it all _mean_? How can Eggsy and I really be together?”

Lancelot looked thoughtful. “There’s a… missing piece, as it were, in all of us. A kind of… humanness. Not having it allows us to see auras and manipulate whatever circumstances are in our particular purview- and of course the fact that we aren’t mortal means that we don’t need to eat or sleep. But that little bit of humanness and mortality go hand in hand. We lose it when we die, but it doesn’t just disappear. It goes to a kind of... vault somewhere.”

“I could… have it back?”

“You already do,” Lancelot said, smirking. “Gazelle delivered it last night. It’ll take a while for it to settle, as it were- so your powers will leave you slowly as your mortality returns.”

“And then what?”

“Have you thought much about the people who work in the shop? Or who help us buy houses and rent cars and do all the things that aren’t exactly easy when no one can remember who you are? The people who can see cupids and remember us but also live as part of the world?”

“I suppose I haven’t,” Harry admitted. “Thought about it much.”

“Those are people who have met their match and been sent back into the world. You will lose your ability to see auras and most of your other powers. You’ll never be quite a normal person, Galahad- _Harry_ \- but you _can_ have a life with Eggsy. A full one.”        

*   *   *

Lancelot left to allow Harry to process what he had learned in peace. He half expected Eggsy to come down looking for him at some point before he was done, but he never did. Eventually, Harry went upstairs to him instead, and found him still in the bed. He wasn't quite asleep, though, judging from the way he mumbled, “Harry?” softly as entered the room.

Even not fully awake, Eggsy turned his turned his face up obligingly for Harry to kiss, and once he started Harry couldn’t seem to stop.

Slowly Eggsy woke properly. He gripped Harry by the shoulders and looked him over, reading Harry’s elation in seconds. “You can- you can stay?”

Harry kissed him hard. “I can stay.”

*   *   *

Harry went back to HQ the next time he was willing to let go of Eggsy for long enough to do so, and Eggsy went home after securing Harry’s promise that he would come by as soon as he was finished. Harry didn’t plan to be there any longer than he had to be to get whatever his new job was in his new capacity, and he didn’t expect it to take too long.  

Harry had worried, faintly, that he wouldn’t be able to maintain the standard of living to which he had become accustomed, and to which he would very much like for Eggsy to be able to become accustomed to as well- but only faintly, because he would live anywhere if he could live with Eggsy. But on his way out Merlin had passed him his first paycheck for his new job as a tailor, and if those were the starting figures Harry needn’t have worried at all.

He was at Eggsy’s flat in just a few hours. Eggsy was packing a few things to leave at Harry’s house now that he probably would be there much more often. Jamal was there too, having a conversation with Eggsy as he flitted around the flat packing.

Eggsy looked between them and smiled just a little tightly. “Jamal,” he said. “You remember Harry, right?”

Jamal looked at Harry vacantly. Merlin- after Harry had told him that he understood why he did what he did but reserved the right to be annoyed about it- had told Harry that people would be able to see him now, remember him now, and that for those who had met him before it would be a little disorienting as they tried to figure out why they had never paid him much mind before.

“My boyfriend?” Eggsy added.

Jamal’s frown deepened. “Yeah,” he said at last, looking Harry over. He was still trying to figure out why he hadn’t given more thought to Eggsy’s boyfriend before now, and searching for something to say at the same time. “Thought you was older,” he said at last.

Harry glanced at Eggsy, whose aura seemed to be getting greener by the hour. When it settled it would probably be the last aura Harry saw before he became fully mortal again. According to Merlin, when that time came his body’s age would also settle, probably at about thirty- he would still be the older of the two of them, but he would be at a good age to spend the rest of his life with Eggsy and vice versa. Until that happened, however, the people in Eggsy’s life would justify it the way mortal minds typically justified magic- by assuming that they had just been mistaken. It would be Harry’s job to help them come up with an explanation. “It’s the suit,” Harry said. “I gather it adds years.”

“Talking like that probably don’t help.”

“I’ll take that under advisement.”

Jamal rolled his eyes but looked amused. He leaned close, again talking to Eggsy like Harry wasn’t there, but this time it was on purpose. “You really like this guy, Eggsy?”

Eggsy didn’t once take his eyes off Harry as he smiled and said, “Yeah. I really, really do.”

“Right,” Jamal said after a moment. “I’ll just…” He pointed at the door, and Eggsy saw him out. Harry lingered in Eggsy’s room to give them some time alone, and when he made him way out Eggsy had closed the door behind Jamal and was leaning his back against it.

“So is that gonna be it?” he asked Harry. “You’re just always gonna be my weird boyfriend who no one paid any attention to for the first six months we were dating?”

 _No_ , Harry thought impulsively. _Eventually I’m going to be your weird husband_. He didn’t say so though; there would be plenty of time for that. There would be time for everything. “I suppose it is,” he said, crossing to Eggsy and then resting a hand next his head on the door. “Regrets?”        

Eggsy shook his head, eyes glittering. He reached out, gripping Harry by the lapels, and pulled him even closer. “No. I _am_ thinking it’s gonna be awkward when you properly meet my mum, though.”

Harry laughed quietly, touching Eggsy’s neck and pressing their foreheads together. “You’re not wrong.”

Eggsy laughed.

**Author's Note:**

> You can always find me on [tumblr](http://potentiality-26.tumblr.com).


End file.
